


Never Read the Comments

by boombangbing



Series: Direction [4]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Anal Play, Blow Jobs, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic, Established Relationship, F/M, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, PTSD, Prostate Massage, Resolved Sexual Tension, Role Reversal, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-18 17:01:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 53,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boombangbing/pseuds/boombangbing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Darcy are making this 'getting married' thing up as they go along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As a rule, I don't post things in chapters, but this is getting _so long_ that I've decided to break my own rules and post somewhat as I go. I've already written 40,000 words, though, so there's some material to go round.

Steve's always had nightmares, ever since he was five and sleeping on a trundle bed below his mom in a rooming house. The guy who lived across the hall was obsessed with pulps and gave Steve _Herbert West – Reanimator_ to read one day when he was being watched by the landlady while his mom was at work. He didn't understand all of the words, but he got the gist of it, the _terrifying_ gist of corpses being violated and brought back to life as tortured souls and, especially, _decapitated heads screaming_.

His nightmares were always a jumbled mess of shapes and colours and often nothing more distinct than a vague sense of unease the morning after. The most concrete ones involved Cthulu when he was ten, because despite finding each one more scary and unsettling than the last, he kept on reading whatever Lovecraft stories he could get his hands on. The nightmares, while upsetting in the moment and the occasional cause of embarrassing bed-wetting incidences, faded away in the daylight, leaving him to enjoy the fast, uneven beat of his heart all over again when he got a new issue of _Weird Tales_. His mom always warned him that he couldn't run around with the other kids and get himself all riled up because of his heart and his asthma, but he was always, always too stupid to listen.

He wishes so, so much that he still had those indistinct nightmares. In their place he gets the smell of gun powder and the feel of dirt in his boots and the sounds of explosions that left some men deaf and the chill of snow and ice and the taste of vomit from being caught off guard by a dead body. And there isn't really any comfort in waking up from it, because he can't console himself that none of it happened, that he remains unscathed.

When he wakes up on Sunday morning from a particularly bad dream, his fingers are clenched in the sheets, desperately trying to hold onto something that isn't there, knuckles white. For a few seconds he can't even stretch them out, and has to tug his hand away. Once he manages to straighten his fingers, he looks around the room with blurry eyes, familiarity and unfamiliarity jostling for place in his mind, until he settles on a framed drawing of... of Darcy that he was embarrassed about putting up because it really isn't very good at all but she refuses to let him fix it.

Darcy. A thin vein of panic shoots through him as he starts to remember where he is, because her side of the bed is cold and she's not in the room and where is she? And he sort of knows that she's probably in the kitchen poisoning herself with coffee, or on the computer watching cat videos, but he just can't quite get himself calm down right now.

He kicks at the blankets that he's managed to get all wrapped around himself, and tries to get out of bed. 'Tries' because he can't even get his damned legs to work, and he swiftly ends up on the floor.

“Steve?” Darcy calls, and he breathes out. Okay, he's just being a weirdo again. That's okay, everything's okay.

Darcy pads into the room in her bunny slippers and looks down at him. “Did you fall out of bed?”

She's wearing his old shirt, and not much else, it looks like. He smiles a little and takes the hand she offers.

“I got out of bed and... then fell over,” he says, sitting back down on the bed. “If that helps.”

“It doesn't,” she says, dropping down beside him, and he hums agreement. “Did you have another nightmare?”

“Yeah.”

“Man, I thought I was being nice, letting you sleep in.”

“You were,” he says, and presses his face against her shoulder.

“Would a shower help?” she asks, her hand creeping up the back of his t-shirt. “If you're going to keep falling over, I'm afraid I'll have to supervise it.”

“In that case, I think it's very likely that I'm going to fall over again,” he murmurs against her neck.

-

Darcy convinces him to go out in the afternoon, to shake the last of his disorientation off. He doesn't really want to; ever since they got outed to the press, it's been even harder to live his life in peace, but Darcy tells him that he can't stay inside all the time, and it seems disingenuous to say that he still goes to the gym and spends time at S.H.I.E.L.D.

“Let's go to the promenade,” she says, slipping her hand into his when they get outside. “I wanna go watch the Statue of Liberty cruise ships.”

“I don't think they run in January.”

“You don't know everything,” she says.

“No, but I'm pretty sure--”

“Do you, or do you not, know everything, Steven?” she interrupts.

He sighs and looks down at her. Her nose is going red from the cold. “I do not know everything, Darcy.”

“Well, there you go,” she says with a sharp nod, and tucks their clasped hands into the pocket of his coat.

-

“So, I don't see any boats,” he says, leaning his elbows against the railing, looking out at Manhattan.

“Okay, okay, so Captain America is right again, _as usual_ ,” she grumbles.

“It's still nice, though. I used to come here when I was a ki--” 

He's cut off by a face full of snow.

“Story time later,” Darcy says, “Snowball fight now.”

“Darcy,” he starts, and gets hit by another snowball. He spits stray twigs out of his mouth and narrows his eyes. “Okay, you asked for it.”

She squeals and ducks behind a bench as he crouches down to collect some snow, devising a strategy on the fly; if he tries to go around the other side of the bench, she'll just run away, and although he'd be able to catch up to her in a couple of strides, that's not really in the spirit of the game. He's pretty sure, though, that he'd be able to lob it over the bench and hit her, if he's gentle enough with it.

He packs the snow in as tight as he can and throws it lightly. It lands exactly on target.

“Oh!” Darcy shrieks as the snow crumbles down her hair. “No fair, foul, I call foul!”

He grins. “Sorry.”

“You're not sorry,” she mutters, and reaches up to pat the snow out of her hair. “Ugh, there are twigs in my hair! Twigs, Steve!”

“Come here,” he says, holding his hand out, and she edges closer with a suspicious look on her face. He spreads his hands. “Haven't got any more snow on me, promise. Come on,” he says, and starts to pick out the little twigs and stones.

“You're terrible,” she says, knotting her fingers in his shirt.

“I'm sorry,” he says. She pushes up on her tiptoes to kiss him, slipping her other hand inside his coat and around his back, humming against his mouth. He tangles his fingers in her hair and pulls her closer.

“Ex-excuse me?” a voice says behind them. Darcy kisses him harder. “I'm sorry, are you--?”

Darcy sighs and pulls away. “Your audience awaits,” she murmurs.

He turns around; his 'audience' looks about fourteen, standing about ten feet away from a similar group of fourteen year olds, clustered together, whispering to one another. He resists the urge to sigh as well, and smiles at her instead. The USO girls told him to always smile, 'even if you're feelin' like shit, show 'em those pearly whites and everything'll be okay'. Wasn't exactly the truth, but it was good advice anyway.

“Are you Captain America?” the girl says, blushing.

“Yeah,” he says. Darcy slides her arm around his waist and hooks her thumb into his belt loop.

“Wow,” she says and bites his lip.

“And what's your name?”

“Oh, uh, I'm... I'm.” She's going even more red, if that's possible. “I'm Amy.”

“Hi, Amy, I'm Steve.” He holds out his hand, and she looks at it like she's never seen a hand before.

“Don't worry, he doesn't bite,” Darcy says. Somehow she manages to not turn it into innuendo.

Amy takes his hand nervously and he shakes it for a moment before taking pity on her and letting go. She looks at her hand for a moment, then back up, blinking rapidly.

“So, are you his girlfriend?” Amy asks Darcy.

“Yup,” she says.

“Are you a-- are you a superhero too?”

“Nope, I'm just an office grunt.”

“Wow,” Amy says again. “Um.”

“You the only one brave enough to come over here?” he asks, nodding at her friends in the distance. There's a faint squeal and they look anywhere that isn't over at him.

“Oh, uh, yeah. They didn't believe it was you.”

He smiles. “It's good to have a brave friend, I hope they appreciate it.”

“Yeah, well...” She lifts a shoulder. “I don't think they do.”

“Neither did I when I was your age.”

Her eyes go round. “You weren't brave?”

“I was the stupid friend.”

Darcy tuts and knocks her shoulder into his. “Steve was the arty friend.”

“Oh. Art's my best class at school,” Amy blinks up at him some more. “Is it really true that you were born in the twenties?”

“I was born in 1918. I was probably a teenager when your grandparents were born.”

“Wow,” she says again. She really likes that word.

“Hey, d'you want me to take your picture with him?” Darcy asks, pulling her hand away from his belt loop. 

“ _Really?_ ”

Darcy shrugs, ignoring the look Steve gives her out of the corner of his eye. “Sure. He does weddings, too.”

Amy frowns, but pulls her phone out anyway. “You just press--”

“I know the way of the iPhone, I'm not old like Steve,” Darcy says, taking it from her. She tugs Steve around to stand next to Amy, humming to herself, then holds the camera up, frowning. She lowers it, still frowning, then takes a few steps back and smiles. 

Amy looks up at him. “Wow, you're really tall.”

“Yeah, I think it's going to mess up your picture, I'm sorry.”

That makes her blush again, for some reason. “I don't mind,” she says quietly.

“Okay,” Darcy calls. “Say 'America'!”

Steve rolls his eyes, then plasters on the biggest smile he can muster. The camera flashes and Darcy scrutinises the picture for a moment before handing the phone back to Amy.

“Thank you. Wow,” Amy mutters, looking at the picture. “Everyone's going to be so jealous.”

“That is normally what happens when Steve's around,” Darcy says, taking his hand again. “Hey, we gotta get going, but remember to rub it in everyone's faces that you got a picture with Cap, okay?”

Amy grins. “Okay. Bye.”

Steve waves at her briefly as she retreats back to her friends, who practically swallow her up into the middle of their group. “Wow,” he says.

Darcy laughs and slaps him lightly on the chest. “Wanna get sushi?”

-

They get a table in the furthest corner at the back of the sushi place. The waiter takes one look at Steve and really, really doesn't want to seat them there.

“By the restroom? We've got tables free by the window, it's got a great view of the street, or I'm sure someone would move, if you'd like to sit somewhere else.”

“That table will be fine,” he says, and because he can see that the waiter is still wavering on it, he adds, “Son.”

There's something about that word that gets people to do what he wants, even though it's clearly ridiculous to call someone only a couple of years younger than him 'son'. Darcy's soft chuckle confirms it.

“Your menus,” the waiter says as he shows them to their seats. He even pulls the chair out for Darcy; she looks slightly disconcerted. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Lemonade for me, please,” Steve says, flipping the menu open.

“Coke, please,” Darcy says. “ _Not_ diet, no ice, okay?”

The guy nods earnestly. “We have a great red wine, if you'd like that. On the house!”

Steve gets the feeling that this is going to be a tiring meal. “Soft drinks are fine, thank you.”

The waiter looks unsure, but nods anyway and walks off.

“A lesser man would totally take advantage of all your fame, you know,” Darcy says.

“I'd take advantage if they'd offer me something I wanted.”

Darcy raises an eyebrow. “If you say so. Hey, let's share the yakitori, I can never get through all of it on my own.”

“I wanted to get nigiri.”

“Get both,” she says, “I don't think you're going to have a problem finishing it all off.”

“Oh, okay.”

She pushes his leg lightly with her foot. “Hey, are all right? You seem kind of... I don't know, down.”

“I'm okay, it's just... bad dreams, you know?”

“Yeah... But, I mean, that was five hours ago. Maybe you should...” She pulls a face. “Talk to someone about it.”

“I'm talking to you,” he says.

She narrows her eyes. “Because that's _exactly_ what I meant.”

“Yeah, I'm sorry. I know I should, I just... don't want to.” He had a couple of mandatory therapy sessions after he got out of the ice, until he realised that, actually, they weren't mandatory at all. He had long since been marked as KIA, was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart in 1966; he was, supposedly, a free agent, so he decided to draw his line in the sand over his meetings with the aggravatingly gentle therapist.

Darcy smiles. “Fair enough. Guess I'll just have to cheer you up later, then.”

He bites his lip. “Okay.”

Lunch goes pretty well – he gets a couple of 'love you, man!'s from passersby, and one woman asks him to sign her t-shirt; he offers a signed napkin, but apparently that doesn't cut it for her. Darcy almost busts a gut laughing.

“Can we _go_?” he says after they've finished eating, and Darcy is fiddling with the napkin, trying to get it back into its origami swan shape. It's definitely not a whine, because Steve doesn't whine.

Darcy's look suggests otherwise. She sighs and glances around; there's a guy across the aisle who thinks he's being very inconspicuous about filming them on his phone. “Ah,” she says, “okay, I'll get the California rolls to go, then.”

The walk home is less stressful, if only because they take lots of side streets and alleyways to avoid people and Darcy distracts him with dumb jokes. He knows he's worrying her and he hates that. The nightmares are just so much worse than they used to be, so much harder to forget in the morning, even with Darcy's soft face and loud voice to keep his mind on better things. It's even worse on weekdays, though, when he's left alone with his thoughts until the early evening.

Darcy has work to do when they get home, work that she should have done Friday night, but she's always been a last minute kind of girl, she says.

“I can leave it till tomorrow,” she says, “I don't normally have much to do in the mornings, anyway.”

“I've got my book, don't worry.”

She doesn't look convinced. “Okay... but not one of your depressing books, okay?”

He picks up his bound copy of _The Spirit_. “Dashing masked hero having improbable adventures.”

She sniffs. “All right.”

“Glad you approve,” he says, settling down on the couch.

She kisses him on the side of his head before she comes around and sits next to him with her laptop.

“You're going to get a bad back, typing like that,” he says.

“Working,” she says, and places a finger to her lips, “shush.”

She fiddles with the locket as she works, twirling it gently around the fingers of one hand while she types. He loves seeing her wear it – he remembers it hanging around his mother's neck when she was hunched over the piece work she took in on the side, the only thing remaining of his father besides one of his dog tags. The army was fairly successful in holding on to Steve's belongings after his 'death'; that had a lot to do with Dum Dum, Fury told him.

Darcy glances at him out of the corner of her eye, eyebrow arched, and he looks back down at his book. It's difficult to concentrate on today, though, and his attention wanders. He tidies up the living room, hangs up Darcy's scattered clothing, tries to sketch what Captain America would look like as a masked gentleman superhero – stupid, is what – and starts on dinner. Darcy slips in behind him while he's chopping vegetables, and wraps her arms around him.

“Man, you are as twitchy as fuck today,” she says.

“I'm sorry, was I bothering you?”

“As if you could,” she says and presses her mouth against his back before tugging his shirt from his pants. “Wanna quickie?”

“Y-yeah,” he stammers as she works on his zipper with one hand, rubbing the palm of her other hand against his dick. He drops the knife onto the chopping board and grips the edge of the counter while she makes quick work of his erection. For having such small hands, she sure knows how to use them.

“Never get tired of that,” she murmurs. “Soft to hard in thirty seconds – they should put that on the packaging of your action figures.”

“I think-- _ah_ \-- I think that would be a completely different sort of, of-- ohhh,” he groans, dropping his head to his chest. God, her hands are just so incredible, he could do this all day. 

And he really could – so far his sex drive appears to be nearly limitless. After the serum, he found that he got aroused at the drop of a hat, and thought about sex at least twice as often as he used to. He imagined all the things Peggy might do to him, all the stuff she could teach him, holding him down, tying him up. He thought about Private Lorraine, too, had lingering memories of that kiss that he was ashamed of, because he wasn't really interested in her as a person but kept on thinking about her body anyway. He just generally had all sorts of feverish thoughts about any woman that passed by him. Howard said all the extra testosterone swilling around inside of him was the cause but, predictably, he didn't see the problem, and didn't offer any solutions. Steve had pretty much got it under control, with the help of the intense immersion therapy of spending the majority of his time with barely dressed showgirls, but that was before he actually lost his damn virginity. 

When he was still at the orphanage, the other boys used to talk about what it was like to finger girls, what their breasts felt like, using the crudest words possible, though Steve was always pretty doubtful that any of this was from first hand experience. They weren't exactly the most attractive, charismatic bunch of guys around. By the time he and Bucky moved in together, the talk was more lurid and more based in fact and he came home at least a couple of times to find Bucky having sex on the couch. And in the army, most of the guys had a girl waiting for them back home, and when they told stories after a few pints of beer, they were hazy and rose-tinted, about long legs and curled hair and red lips.

Steve listened to all these stories with varying levels of interest, but managed to put it almost entirely out of his mind in the war: he'd either die or he wouldn't, and if he didn't die, then maybe Peggy might be interested in going on a date with him sometime. And after getting out of the ice, it was just about the last thing he was concerned with.

Until Darcy. He wonders if she'd be freaked out to know just _how much_ he thinks about her naked. Probably not. Maybe not.

Darcy pulls him around to face her, her hands disappointingly ceasing their work. She starts unbuttoning his shirt, which, well, it isn't as good, but it's still pretty great, then leans in and licks a strip down his chest. He sucks in a stuttered breath and almost manages to bite back his entire groan.

“We haven't christened the kitchen yet, have we?” she asks, toying with his belt.

“Nurgh-no, we haven't,” he says.

She looks thoughtful. “Hm. Ever had a blowjob?”

“Uh uh,” he mumbles.

“That is the right answer, Captain,” she says, and starts to work his pants off his hips. She stops for a moment to carefully lift the locket over her head and off, setting it down gently on the counter with a raised eyebrow at Steve, then shoves his pants down his legs and drops to her knees with a wink.

“Oh,” he gasps, as she blows gently on his dick.

She sits back and presses her tongue to her bottom lip. It's all he can do not to sink down there with her. “Okay, full disclosure,” she says, “I can't deep throat, my gag reflex is... gaggy, but I do all right.”

“Okay,” Steve says in a very small voice. 

She smiles, and leans forward. His brain short circuits a little at the sight of her mouth stretching around his dick. It's _obscene_ , like the tijuana bibles that Bucky used to slip to him, but it's _real_ and it's _Darcy_ , and he almost comes just from looking. He squeezes his eyes shut and grips the counter again.

Darcy flattens her tongue against his shaft and hums around him, and he can't help the moan the escapes his mouth. He pushes his hips against the counter and drops his head back.

“Oh, oh, Darcy, _God_ ,” he babbles. She rubs his leg in response, sliding her palm up and pressing her thumb against the muscles of his inner thigh, rubbing light circles there. His foot spasms and he bites his lip; it's so hard to keep quiet, but he's going to end up screaming if he's not careful. 

Darcy shifts a little, sitting up more – every little movement sends shudders through him. He digs his nails into the underside of the counter. It feels like his legs might give out, the way they're aching and tingling, like the counter is the only thing keeping him upright. Maybe doing this standing up wasn't such a good idea, it's hard enough for him to control himself when they're in bed, his limbs just don't respond to him the way they're supposed to when he has sex. 

“Oh, ohhh,” he pants, trying and failing to hold his breath. Jesus, he's so _loud_. He doesn't remember Bucky or any of the commandos being this loud, when he inevitably overheard them having sex in their close quarters. It was always the girls that he could hear more clearly, but even then, they weren't like this.

Darcy sucks and licks at him for what feels like forever, till he's quite sure that her jaw must be starting to hurt, but she grips his ass and keeps at it, and he can't really form the words to tell her she can stop, even if he were inclined to.

She slides her hand up the outside of his leg and around his thigh, fingernails scraping across his skin. Her fingers tease just behind his balls for a minute, setting his feet tingling, then press in and rub gently. The tingling in his feet turns almost painful for a moment before it all just... clicks into place, and he's pretty sure he shouts something completely nonsensical, gripping the counter until he distantly hears a crack. He looks down with unfocused eyes and she's... _God_ , she's swallowing.

“Dar...” he groans, “you don't... have to...” He doesn't manage to finish his sentence, though, it's just too much effort, and they are so far beyond politeness now. Darcy rubs circles against the back of his knee and sucks him dry before pulling off with a pop. She licks her lips and he thinks maybe his legs really are going to give out now. 

She looks up and raises an eyebrow. “That counter never stood a chance.”

“Huh?” He lifts his hands and looks at the two snapped off pieces of counter in his hands. “Oh... yeah. Damn.”

“It's very flattering,” she says, and stands up. “Don't know how you're going to explain this to a carpenter, though.”

“Yeah,” he says and puts the broken pieces down. “So, uh.”

She elbows him. Her cheeks are all pink and flushed, much like his own, he imagines. “First blowjob, dude, did you enjoy it?”

He laughs, ducking his head. “I think that would be a 'yes'. What was the, uh, the thing you did with your fingers at the end?”

“That was Captain Prostate,” she says, “it's like the g-spot for guys, thought you might enjoy that.”

“Oh,” he says, “yeah, that was... yeah.”

She grins. “Eloquent as always, Steve. Now, I don't mean to offend, but I'm gonna go wash my mouth out.”

“Darcy?” he says, resting his hand on her shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“Can I...” He bites his lip. “Can I kiss you?”

“Can you... Oh.” Her eyebrows raise. “Like it kinky like that?”

He shrugs. “Maybe, let's find out.”

She grins and reaches up to grip the back of his neck, pulling him down to her. The kiss isn't really that much different from any other, aside from the fact that his pants are still around his ankles, but that isn't exactly unprecedented for him these days. Darcy bites his lip and tugs on it, pulling him forward.

“Nurgh,” he groans, pressing into her with absolutely no grace whatsoever. It's a good thing that Darcy doesn't seem to mind his occasional bouts of clumsiness.

She finishes the kiss with a pat on his waist. “I know you're ready and raring to go again, but I'm kind of hungry. Which is ironic, considering.”

“I'm making pasta.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Again?”

“We don't have anything else, and also, if you don't like it, you can cook.”

She laughs and gives him a peck on the lips. “Okay, Grumpy, I'm gonna go gargle, you put your pants back on and get to that amazing pasta that I really enjoy so much.”

Despite complaining about it, Darcy still eats her pasta in about two seconds flat, and licks the plate clean, and leaves it all for Steve to wash up. She just smiles cutely at him and he doesn't even mind.

When he gets back to the couch, Darcy scoots over and curls up next to him, pillowing her cheek on his arm and flicking aimlessly through the channels on the TV.

“Ugh, TV sucks,” she mutters.

“Mm,” he murmurs. He really doesn't mind the television, despite everyone thinking that he must get all his news from broadsheets and think that when people talk about 'the wireless' they mean the radio. There's a lot of crap, but he likes some of the twenty four hour news channels, and he likes TCM and AMC, and he definitely doesn't mind a few hours mindless entertainment. 

Darcy lands on some romantic comedy, and makes a disgusted sound but doesn't change the channel. Valentine's Day is in three short weeks, and it's incredibly hard to avoid. Guys used to give their girls heart-shaped pillows and take them to the local dance hall – now there are chocolate and flowers and expensive jewellery and weekend getaways and dinners at exclusive restaurants, and he has no idea what to do for Darcy. The last two are out, really, because of being recognised, and he's sure she'd be gracious about a bunch of roses and heart-shaped box of chocolates, but it's not exactly inspired. He wonders if he should have waited to give her the locket, but if he hadn't done it then he'd have lost his nerve altogether.

“Ugh,” she repeats. “I don't get movies like this. I mean, why doesn't this guy just tell her he's been in love with her since he was in the womb, blah blah blah. Acting like a high school kid with a crush isn't cute. Like, high school crushes are the worst.”

“It's supposed to be romantic,” Steve says. It's no _It Happened One Night_ , but it's not the worst thing he's ever watched.

“Well, it's not. There's nothing romantic about fucking around like an idiot. People should just say what they mean.”

“Well, yeah, it would make everything a lot easier.”

“Like,” Darcy continues, “this dude should just propose to her if he wants to marry her. Trying to make everything perfect is just, like...” She waves her hands around a little. “I mean, if I wanted to marry you, I'd just say, 'hey, Steve, wanna marry me?', you know?”

She cranes her head back to look at him and he feels himself flush cold. Which is just silly, really. “Uh huh,” he mumbles.

She looks away for a moment, frowning at the TV, and Steve tells himself to relax and stop being an idiot. Then she looks back at him, unblinking. Steve can't stop himself from holding his breath. “Hey, Steve,” she says, her voice just a little shaky.

“Yeah?” he squeaks.

“Do you want to marry me?”

He swallows. “Uh...” he murmurs.

She takes his hand gently, curling her fingers into his. “Steve,” she says quietly.

“Are you joking?” he somehow manages without stumbling over his words.

She shakes her head slowly.

“I thought you didn't want to get married for at least ten years,” he says. His heart is pounding like crazy.

“I changed my mind.”

“Oh,” he says. He swallows again, then leans over and kisses her. And kisses her and kisses her, drawing his knees beneath himself to sit up over her. She slides her hand over his cheek, thumb resting along his chin, and pushes him away slightly.

“So, that's a 'no', then?” she says, biting her tongue between her teeth.

Steve laughs, high-pitched and a little hysterical. He presses a hard kiss to her mouth and drops his forehead to her shoulder. “You're not just saying it because you know it's what I want, right?”

“You know, I'm not. I'm as surprised as you are, honestly. Hey.” She sinks her hand into his hair and tilts his head up. “Hey, let's get married, Steven Grant Rogers.”

“Okay, Darcy Lewis,” he says, looking at her carefully. She seems happy, she's smiling just as much as he is, and he thinks his cheeks are going to start aching before the week's out. “Wait, do you have a middle name?”

“Elizabeth. My mom thinks she's _so_ funny.”

“Can I take you to bed now, Darcy Elizabeth Lewis?”

She giggles and kisses him on the cheek. “You sure can, Captain.”


	2. Chapter 2

Getting up in the morning gets harder and harder every day. He used to be a pretty motivated guy, most of the time; at the very least he knew he had to get up and go to work if he wanted to eat that evening, and up until recently there simply wasn't any reason to stay in bed past the alarm going off. But waking up with Darcy's chin tucked against his chest and her arms wrapped around his middle, it's hard to be the responsible one and coach her through the morning.

He walks her to the subway before it even gets light out. Normally he'd go into Manhattan with her and kick around at S.H.I.E.L.D. or with Tony all day, but there's a lot of redecorating to do and he's got ceilings to paint. Darcy wants no part in any painting that takes place above shoulder level, and she's ridiculously distracting, so it's best just to do stuff like this when she's out.

“See you tonight,” he says. He feels stupidly nervous and excited.

“Yeah,” she says, biting her lip and glances back at the entrance of the station. “Yeah, _fiancé_.”

He grins. “Fiancée,” he agrees and kisses her.

He listens to his iPod while he paints, to the redecorating playlist Darcy made for him. It's mostly power ballads and rock music. He likes the rock, but he's not so sure about the other stuff.

He breaks for lunch, drinking one of his shakes and eating a sandwich while sitting on a sheet he put down to protect the floor from paint. The place is starting to shape up, or at least most of the worst stains have been painted over now. Darcy thinks the place could be nice if they put some effort into it, which really means if Steve puts some effort in and Darcy tells him what to do from her spot on couch. She does all the searching for furniture online, though, bought them a couch big enough for him to stretch out on and a couple of art deco cabinets for the bedroom from Craigslist that he really loves. Sometimes he needs that push to shake himself out of his depression mentality of not buying anything more than what he absolutely needs. It's not as if he actually enjoyed living like that: he resented having nothing to his name when the orphanage turned him out, and hated all the bleak rooms and apartments that he lived in over the years.

There's a tapping at the door when he's halfway through his sandwich. It's faint at first, then gets louder as he sits there on the floor, looking at it suspiciously. When the knocking gets even more insistent, he gets up and peers through to the peephole at his eighty six year old neighbour. He opens the door with a frown.

“Mrs Rossi?” he says.

“Oh, I was worried you wouldn't be in,” she says, blinking owlishly at him.

“Is something wrong? If something's broken, I'm probably not the guy to ask.”

“Oh no, it's nothing like that. It's just that my son was meant to come round today and help me with my grocery shopping, but he's had an emergency at work. I don't have a car, you see, and he carries the bags for me.”

“And you want me to--? Oh, sure, okay, I guess I'd better change,” he finishes, looking down at his paint covered clothes.

“You look fine, don't worry,” she says, with what he probably mistakes for a wink. It's probably just a twitch or something.

He hasn't really talked to Mrs Rossi that much. She poked her head out the door when he moved in, and commented on how little he was bringing with him; he told her he'd just got out of the army, and she said her grandson was serving in Afghanistan. That was pretty much the longest conversation they've ever had, although he has been drafted into taking her trash out a few times.

He keeps his hat on in the supermarket, brim pulled down low, and follows her around with the cart. She's a tiny little thing, in an old cardigan and a thick pair of glasses, but she certainly likes her soda. He loads two twelve packs into her cart under her watchful eye, plus a litre of Coca Cola for her younger grandkids. 

“Can't stand the stuff myself, but they like it. I'll stick to my 7-Up,” she says, and waves him on.

Mostly she picks up basics like milk and eggs, a lot of sugary treats for her grandkids, and all sorts of painkillers from the pharmacy. She tells him about her kids' jobs and her grandkids' school plays that are coming up and that she's buying all these bottles of Tylenol and Advil because her hip is acting up again. He smiles and nods and tries to say something relevant at various intervals, but not a lot comes to mind. They probably saw the same movies as kids, listened to Bing Crosby, learned to read from McGuffey Readers, but despite a shared history, he can't really relate to her at all. He might have been born in 1918, but to him, she's an old woman.

After a good half an hour of wandering they circle around to the checkout and settle at the back of a long line. There's a magazine stand at the end of it, with all the usual suspects, and his eye is immediately drawn to one that proudly has OLD ENOUGH TO BE HER GRANDFATHER emblazoned in yellow on the front cover, along with a picture of him and Darcy kissing outside a teashop. He sighs and looks away.

“Don't let them get you down too much,” Mrs Rossi says quietly.

He glances at her. “Sorry?”

“They're all two-bit shucksters,” she says seriously, nodding at the magazine.

“Oh, I didn't know that you...” he mumbles, feeling stupid.

“You thought I didn't connect that the lovely young man next door was--” She nods at the magazine again. “Your face is one that's not easily forgotten by women of my age. I must admit, at first I assumed the dementia had got me at last, but after the... excitement, I remembered what you said about having just got out of the army, and the creaky old gears started turning.”

“Oh,” he says again.

The line starts moving, and Steve busies himself with loading everything onto the conveyor belt, in a particular order because 'they're not too bright here' and they'll put all the heavy stuff on top without the proper guidance. Steve is starting to get the impression that Mrs Rossi is a bit of a hellion, and once he's completely loaded down with groceries, he wonders just how much of an emergency it was that her son had.

She trots along ahead of him as they make their way home, talking idly about something that he's sort of stopped listening to.

“Steve?” she says after a while, “are you doing okay there?”

“Yep,” he says, trying to puzzle out the best way to hold all the bags – too bad super strength didn't come with extra hands. He manages to get everything back into her apartment in one piece, though, and is promptly pressed into service changing light bulbs that she's been meaning to 'get around to' for weeks. She just smiles brightly at him and he can't help but laugh. His reward for all his hard work is tea and cake.

“This is really good,” he says, and she beams, going back to the kitchen to get more. It's hard to do the polite thing and refuse any more when his stomach betrays him and growls as if the world is coming to an end. “Sorry,” he mutters as he takes the second slice.

“You're a growing boy, don't worry,” she says.

“You don't know the half of it,” he replies.

“This is a bit of a dream come true, Captain America sitting on my couch.”

He pauses with a forkful of cake halfway to his mouth and tries not to look too pained. “Oh... good,” he manages. 

She laughs. “I would have been so jealous of your girlfriend when I was a girl,” she continues, taking obvious delight in making him uncomfortable. “How is she, by the way?”

“She's great. Actually... she proposed to me last night.” His voice sort of peters out at the end, throat closing up a little, like his happiness is going to choke him.

“Ah, so that's what all the noise was about, then,” she says.

“Uhhh, what?” he says.

“It was just some banging around, nothing incriminating. Oh, to be young.”

“Oh God. Okay, I think I should probably get back to my painting now,” he chokes out. She just laughs at him some more.

At least Darcy is appropriately appalled when she gets home. “Oh God, why did you tell me that?” she asks, burying her face in her hands. “That's terrible.”

“I wanted someone to share in the misery with me,” he says, and ends up tackled down onto the couch cushions.

“Bed,” Darcy orders, rolling off him and grabbing his hand.

She leads him into the bedroom, pushes him down onto the bed, and he goes with it like he might have done before the serum, dropping as if she's overpowered him, and maybe she'll never be able to physically, but in every other way it's true. She circles his wrists with her fingers and holds them over his head, kissing him breathless. Briefly he wonders if the fact that their answer to the embarrassment of their neighbour having heard them have sex is having _more sex_ isn't a little telling, but then she sucks on his tongue and he just doesn't care.

She gets his t-shirt off with the minimal amount of not-kissing involved – he hasn't quite mastered that skill yet – and runs her nails up and down his chest. He tries his best to not squirm, because she's barely touching him and he already feels like he's going to go crazy from it, but it's like all his nerve endings are super charged, and the best answer he could get out of the S.H.I.E.L.D. doctor, when he screwed up the courage to talk about his masturbatory habits a couple of weeks out of the ice, was that his biology had been altered in as yet unknown ways, and they weren't really sure why he felt less pain but more pleasure. He's firmly in the future but doctorsare still able to tell him just as little as they were when he was wheezing, asthmatic mess.

Darcy leans down and trails kisses across his torso, teasing her fingers around his pecs, occasionally give him a little bite. He knows she's doing it to watch how his muscles twitch and clench reflexively; she likes exploring how his body works, which is a good thing because he's not entirely sure himself. Her hands continue to touch him lightly until she casually pinches one nipple between her fingers, not even looking back up at him, and drags a groan from him almost against his will. He can tell that he's only going to get louder from this point and much as he'd like her to put her hand over his mouth and keep him quiet (he still gets shivers thinking about last time), he also wants her to keep touching him everywhere else.

“Darce?” he bites out, arching his back a little as she moves lower. Maybe if he distracts himself with talking, he'll be able to tamp down on all the involuntary noises.

“Mm?”

“We should...” He pauses for a moment as she begins to unbutton his jeans. “D'you think we should get rings?”

Her eyebrows draw together, her fingers still working on the fiddly buttons. It's her own fault, though, she bought them for him. “Rings?” she repeats distantly, clearly not really listening to him.

“Engagement rings?” he clarifies, and she looks up at him. One of her hands is resting just next to his still clothed erection, and he can't help but shift to get some relief; it's kind of a mistake, though, because she starts absently rubbing it and all his thoughts start vacating his mind one by one.

He licks his lips and tries to focus his mind again. “Doesn't the one who gets proposed to get a ring?”

“But I want an engagement ring,” she says, pouting. She rubs faster, and he bites down hard on his lip to keep his mind on topic.

“That's why I said, _ahhh_ , rings, plural,” he says, hearing the way his voice is starting to slur.

She shrugs. “Okay, sure. Now will you stop talking and let me sex you?”

His laugh turns into a groan at the end as she pulls her hand away and starts to tug his pants down. “Yeah. Are you going to take your top off?” he asks hopefully.

“If Fox News could see you now,” she muses.

Afterwards, once Darcy's wrung two very satisfying orgasms out of him, he lies on his side, body pressed up against hers, caught between sleepy and hungry. Unfortunately, it's early enough that hungry wins out.

“I can't be bothered to cook,” he complains into her shoulder.

“The Indian place delivers,” she says, trailing her fingers along his hip bone. “Oh, order me the lamb vindaloo, will you?”

“You planned this,” he mutters as he rolls over and reaches for the phone.

“I planned to meet Captain America and turn him into a lazy sex addict to do my bidding?” She pulls herself up and arranges the pillows to lean back on with a satisfied sigh. “Wow, I have skills.”

She might not have turned him into an 'addict', exactly, but she's definitely changed him. Or maybe changed him back, he didn't always used to be the tight ass that Tony thinks he is – at least, he doesn't think he was. He's definitely more relaxed around Darcy than he's ever been with any woman, or anyone at all really, except Bucky.

The delivery arrives twenty minutes later, by which time his stomach is growling so loud that Darcy is making all sorts of Hulk jokes. He catches sight of himself in the mirror as he goes to answer the door, in his paint-covered t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants he uses for working out, his hair all messy and hanging over his forehead; he barely recognises himself, and neither does the delivery guy, it seems, because he takes the money with disinterest, eyes barely flickering over Steve's face.

“Food's here,” he calls to Darcy.

“Bring it in here,” she calls back.

“Sure that's a good idea?” he asks, but still grabs some cutlery from the kitchen before heading back into the bedroom. “You aren't always so coordinated when you eat.”

“Stop being so prissy and gimme my food,” she says, reaching out with grasping hands.

Of course, she does flick orange sauce onto the sheets and blankets, but she just says it's about time that they should do some laundry. Somehow he thinks he's going to be the one doing it.

“I haven't had dinner in bed since college,” she says happily, then wipes at her eyes and blows her nose. She always gets the hottest food and then spends the meal in tears, but she seems to get some kind of perverse pleasure from it. She places her tissue back on her night stand, then steals one of his naans and dips it in her curry.

“Hey,” he says, “get your own.”

She takes a big bite and grins. “But I didn't know I was going to want them until I saw that you had them,” she says through a mouthful of food.

“I'm a growing boy,” he mutters, and dips another piece of naan bread in her curry to eat.

She arches an eyebrow. “What?”

“Something Mrs Rossi said. She gave me cake.”

“Oh, so I guess you're best friends now, huh?”

“It was good cake,” he says with a shrug. 

She laughs and starts playing with his foot that's sprawled out by her legs. She presses her fingers into the sole and rubs tight circles there; his toes curl appreciatively. “Hey,” she says after a couple of minutes of eating quietly and lulling him with a foot massage. “You know what you said about getting engagement rings?”

“Yeah?” he says, unable to stop himself from tensing up.

“I was thinking, anywhere we go to get rings we're gonna get spotted. Even if the place is empty, the minute we turn around the clerk is going to call someone up and tell them.”

“Okay...” he says slowly. “So, what do you want to do?”

“Well, I think we both know someone who might be able to help with doing stuff like this discreetly.”

He slumps a little with relief. “Oh, okay. Wait... you don't mean Tony, do you? I don't think he's ever done anything discreetly in his entire life.”

“Well, maybe not, but I bet Pepper's got all sorts of contacts.”

“Yeah, I guess she would,” he says, flexing his toes in her grip. “You want me to go ask Tony, don't you?”

“Tomorrow, maybe?” she says. “It's not like you have anything else to do.”

“I'm painting the whole apartment for you,” he argues weakly, but her fingers on his foot are entirely too distracting.

“You should've told me you love the peeling seventies wallpaper. We can keep it if you want.”

He rolls his eyes. “All right, okay, I'll go over tomorrow. You gonna do the other foot?”

-

There seems to be a strange lack of security at Stark Tower when he swings by there unannounced the next day. He decides that a phonecall is going to be too awkward for him, that it's easier to shut Tony down when they're in the same room because Tony isn't completely blind to body language but does tend to ignore people when they speak.

Steve gets through the lobby and into the elevator without anyone stopping him. Jarvis greets him when he reaches Tony's private residence and lets him into the main living area without a word of protest. Tony's nowhere to be seen, and Steve's not exactly sure how to announce his presence, since there's no doorbell to ring. He scratches the back of his neck and sighs; his dealings with Tony are always just so _inconvenient_ , like there are always hoops to jump through and it's always more of an effort than Steve wants to make. Even just working out where Tony is right now is more than Steve really wants to do.

It turns out that he doesn't have to: a door opens and Tony walks out, nose in his tablet, crosses the living room floor and goes through a door at the other end. Steve frowns and makes a move to follow but then Tony comes back out, still looking at his tablet, holding a glass of something that's probably not water.

“Tony,” Steve says, but Tony raises his index finger and keeps walking until he's out of the room again. “Goddamn it,” Steve mutters. He looks around the room, feeling like an idiot, standing around waiting for a damned audience with Tony Stark.

He turns around and heads back to the elevator. Maybe he should just call up Pepper; in fact he probably should have just done that in the first place.

“You want something, Cap?” Tony asks as Steve presses the elevator button.

He almost got away with it. “You'll see me now?” he says, looking back round at Tony.

“Yep.” He holds out his glass. “Want some whiskey? I just got it, it's really good.”

“You're only offering that to me 'cause you know I'm gonna say no.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that. So, are you just here to bust my balls about not being polite enough?”

Steve sighs again. “No. I, uh, I need your help.”

Tony looks positively ecstatic. “Oh ho, really? Well, then, sit down and tell me your troubles.”

Against his better judgement, Steve does take the seat that Tony offers, on an uncomfortable red couch that Steve assumes is 'fashionable'. Tony crosses his legs primly and rests his hands on top, a look a deep concentration on his face. “Go ahead, get it off your chest.”

Steve scrubs his hands through his hair and looks at Tony. “I... I'm engaged.”

There's a moment, just a fraction of a second, where Tony looks legitimately surprised. Then he's back to smug self-satisfaction. “And you want me to be best man, of course.”

“No.”

“Oh. Okay. So... bridesmaid? I look great in a dress.”

Steve knew this was a bad idea. “We want to get engagement rings, but we'd prefer not to have the whole world's opinion on it. Darcy thought you might... have some ideas.”

“Don't want your choice in jewellery all over Twitter? Yeah, I know a guy.”

“I also... don't want S.H.I.E.L.D. finding out. I don't want them interfering.”

Tony nods. “I get that. I'm sure something can be arranged.”

“Thanks,” Steve says, and finds that he's run out of things to say.

Tony whistles to himself, smiles awkwardly at Steve, then claps his hands together. “So hey, how'd you pop the question?”

“I didn't.”

“You...?” Tony frowns, then raises his eyebrows. “Oh, hey, look at you, being all thoroughly modern Millie!”

“I don't know what that means,” Steve says, but he can't stop the smile that starts spreading across his face. He knows it's his 'dopey smile', as Darcy calls it, and Tony knows it too, judging by the way he's regarding him with his head cocked like a dog.

“I don't think I've ever seen you smile before,” he says.

“I smile plenty.”

“Not like that,” he says, pointing at Steve's face. To Steve's surprise and slight embarrassment, he just starts laughing softly. “Wow,” Tony says, “you really are happy.”

“Yeah, I-- I never thought that, that I'd ever get married, or that any of the rest of this stuff would happen to me...” He trails off at the amused expression on Tony's face. “Oh, just... just shut up, Tony.”

“Man, you really need to get your fiancée to teach you how to trash talk.”

“Don't worry, I will.”

-

Tony calls his 'guy' while Steve is sitting there, trying to think up good comebacks, and sets everything up for the next evening at the tower, to avoid S.H.I.E.L.D. tailing them to a jewellers, since Steve is pretty sure that their every move is recorded.

He's almost nervous to tell Darcy about it, even though it was her idea; it's all just happening so fast and he's still waiting for the other shoe to drop and her to realise that she doesn't want to be tied to mess like him. He's not man enough to put what's best for her first, though, and just breathes a sigh of relief when she says 'cool' and goes back to watching _Law & Order_.

Tony smiles at them creepily when they arrive, leading them into one of the many palatial rooms of his tower. “This way, love birds,” he says, winking at Darcy. “No funny business, okay?”

Darcy rolls her eyes and Steve leans in and says quietly, “This was your idea.”

“And you always do what I tell you?”

He shrugs a shoulder. “Pretty much.”

Tony waves them to a couch to sit down and starts flitting around, offering them alcohol that Darcy immediately accepts. “Oh, damn, that is good,” she says appreciatively, sipping on the whiskey.

“Right? He wouldn't have any,” Tony says, pointing at Steve.

Darcy waves dismissively at Steve. “Don't mind him, he has the worst taste.”

“I liked bathtub gin, whatever happened to that stuff?” he says, and grins when she smacks him on the arm.

“He doesn't have bad taste in women,” Tony says, and winks at her again. Thankfully Jarvis announces that Tony's guest is waiting to be let in before Steve has to have a serious talk with him about what's appropriate to say to a woman with her two hundred pound fiancé sitting next to her. He imagines Tony's got himself in trouble because of that before.

Tony gets up to show the guy in, and Darcy tops up her whiskey from the glass that Tony's left behind on the coffee table. Steve frowns at her.

“I just need some Dutch courage to look at the prices of these rings.”

“Oh... I hadn't thought of that,” he says. He didn't even think to ask Tony who this guy he knows is.

“That's why I do the thinking for the both of us,” Darcy says over the rim of her glass.

Tony brings his guest in; he's tall and skinny, with greying hair and a very nice suit on. When he catches sight of Steve, his face kind of twitches. Steve steels himself.

“So, this is Steve and Darcy,” Tony says, pointing at them. Steve stands up and holds out his hand.

“Ha, yes,” the man says nervously, gaze flickering to Tony as he takes Steve's hand. His palm is very sweaty. “Neil Conner. I'm, I'm...”

“He's my personal jeweller,” Tony says, and Neil nods, dropping Steve's hand.

“You have a personal jeweller?” Steve asks. Neil distractedly shakes Darcy's hand, still looking at Steve.

“And a personal trainer, masseuse, shopper, shoe-shiner, driver, and my own cashier at Whole Foods.”

Steve sighs. “Okay, Tony.”

Neil clears his throat. “I'm always asking Mr Stark when he's going to buy wedding rings to go with the--”

“Okay, Neil!” Tony interrupts loudly. “Show the kids their rings while I go tidy up before Pepper gets home.”

“Ah, yes,” Neil says, and lifts up the suitcase he's holding, setting it down on the coffee table. “Please, sit.” He kneels down next to the coffee and starts opening all the latches on the case.

“I'm sorry about making you come out here at this time, you probably don't work evenings, I'd imagine,” Steve says.

“On the contrary,” Neil says; he seems to be getting into the swing of things now that they're focusing on the task at hand. “With the sort of clients I have, I'm always on call. I considered med school when I was a young man, but I have almost the same hours with this job. Less blood and vomit, most of the time.”

The case opens up into three tiers, all stacked on top of each other. Darcy grins. “Oh cool, I had one of these when I was a kid. It was pink and purple and plastic, though.”

“Now, I brought some diamond rings for the lady to peruse. I also have a catalogue, if you don't like anything you see here. And Mr Stark tells me that you're looking for a ring, too, Captain?”

“Yeah, if you have those...”

“I have everything. I must say, it's nice to see Captain America embracing equality.”

“Uh... oh, yeah,” Steve mutters. 

Darcy laughs and sits back from looking in the case. “These are kind of boring. You got any fun ones?”

“I did wonder, being that you're friends with Mr Stark.” He leans over and pulls open a drawer at the bottom. Darcy takes a look.

“That,” she says, pointing at one of the rings, “is a snake.”

Steve takes a closer look. It is a snake: the band loops around twice, topped with a pointy face that has little green eyes. Darcy turns and looks at him with wide eyes. “I want that one.”

“Sure, it's cute.”

It doesn't fit when she tries it on, and she pouts, but Neil assures her that her fingers are quite lovely and slim, and that he can have it adjusted for her within a couple of days. Then they turn to the matter of Steve's ring.

“I don't know,” he says, when Neil asks what he's looking for. “Something... gold? Silver?”

“It should definitely be round,” Darcy adds.

“How about this one?” Neil pulls out a gold ring with a thick band and stones around the middle. It's a good fit.

“You're a perfect fit,” Neil says, “you can take it now, if you like.”

Steve shows Darcy his hand for inspection. “I'm perfect.”

She glares at his hand. “Don't I know it. It's nice, you should get it.”

“What about wedding rings?” Neil asks. “Kill two birds with one stone? There's uh... a discount if you buy all four together.”

Steve's stomach does a flip. Getting engagement rings is one thing – some people stay engaged for years these days – but wedding rings, they're just... they're just something else altogether. “Um,” he says, smoothing his thumb over the band of the ring. “What do, what do you think, Darcy?”

“I dunno, do you want to?”

He shrugs. “I don't know.”

“Well, don't worry about it then,” Neil says, reaching over to close up the case.

Steve looks between Neil and Darcy and the ring on his finger. Damn, he kind of really wants to. “Um,” he says again.

“I mean, we could,” Darcy says, almost off-handedly. She's biting her lip, though, and looking at him with widened eyes.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay?”

She lifts a shoulder. “Yeah.”

The rings they choose are far less exciting than the churning in his stomach would suggest, just plain gold bands that both need to be adjusted. He stares at them until Neil puts them away in a little box, then stares at Darcy instead. This means they're really going to do it, that means _she_ really _wants_ to do it; he can't stop himself from smiling helplessly.

Tony comes back into the room a couple of minutes later, leaning against the door frame behind them. “Everything okay in here?” he asks as Neil packs up. “No bloodshed?”

Steve drags his attention away from Darcy. “Why would there be bloodshed?”

“There's always bloodshed when I buy jewellery.”

“There is,” Neil confirms.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Steve says, “how much is this... gonna cost?”

Neil pinks. “Well, for all four it'll be, uh, thirty five thousand.”

Steve's pretty sure he chokes a little. Darcy makes a squeaking sound next to him. “Th-thousand?”

“Yes...” Neil says, looking over Steve's shoulder. Steve looks back at Tony, who just shrugs and smiles. “Oh, but there's the discount for the-- for the four, so... twenty thousand.”

Steve tries to swallow past the sudden obstruction in his throat. “Do you take cheques?” he asks in a thin voice.

“Oh, that's, uh...” Neil seems distracted again; when Steve looks at Tony, he's inspecting the wall carefully. Steve narrows his eyes at him. “Payment on delivery, don't worry about it now.”

Steve turns back. “But what about this one?” he asks, lifting his hand.

“Really, don't worry. I trust that you'll make good on your debts, Captain.”

“Let me show you out, Neil,” Tony says firmly. Neil clears his throat and nods, shaking Steve and Darcy's hands one last time before hurrying out of the room with Tony.

“So...” Darcy says after a long moment. “That's really way too much money to spend on, like, _anything_. Except for a really sweet Harley, maybe.”

“I'd spend that on a Harley,” he agrees.

“But rings?”

He scratches his eyebrow. “Well... I can afford it...”

“Maybe we should go Dutch on it. I can... probably... get together ten grand. If I sell a kidney or two. Or three.”

He frowns at her. “Darcy, c'mon, no. It's just that I could have bought four houses with that, back when I was twenty-five. But they're really nice rings.”

She pulls a face. “I feel bad, making you spend that. I don't like feeling bad, Steve.”

“You don't _make_ me do anything.”

“Even...?”

“ _Especially_ that. Don't feel bad.”

“Well... okay. Hey, gimme your hand,” she adds, and grabs his left hand before he can give it to her on his own. She slides the ring off his finger and looks at it for a moment before kneeling down. “We should do this properly.”

“Yeah,” he breathes. It's ridiculous to feel nervous about this now, but try telling his brain that. She laces their fingers together and squeezes.

“I guess we're really going to do this marrying thing, huh?” she says, tilting her head back to look at him, wind-battered hair curling in lots of wild ways around her shoulders.

“I guess so.”

She smiles softly, disentangles their fingers, then slips the ring back on. 

“I'm going to puke, you guys are _that_ adorable,” Tony interrupts, once again leaning against the door frame. Darcy curls her hand around Steve's and pulls herself up.

“Thanks for ruining the moment, asshole,” she says lightly.

“No problem,” he replies. “Wanna stay for dinner? I just ordered Chinese, and Pepper's going to be home soon.”

“Did you get Kung Pao chicken?” she asks.

“Who doesn't get Kung Pao?” Tony replies.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, there's a documentary on TV. Calling it a 'documentary' is a little disingenuous, though, really it's just an hour long episode of Entertainment Tonight about him – him and Darcy. It's stuff like this, he thinks as Darcy drops a tub of ice cream in his lap, that are the reason he wasn't able to wear his ring when he went into Manhattan today.

“Let's watch something else,” he says. “Star Trek's on.”

“I want to see what they're saying about me. Forewarned is forearmed,” she says with a nod and hands him a spoon. “Don't pout.”

“I'm not pouting.”

“Sure,” she says, and turns the volume up. He digs his spoon into the tub, resolves not to share it, then immediately changes his mind back.

It's more of the usual crap: some hastily and poorly researched history on the SSR, an inaccurate account of the war, and a prolonged and exploitative look at Loki's attack. Then they talk a little about Darcy, only child of a lawyer and a university professor, champion of the California spelling bee circuit from 1996 to 2000 (“I didn't know that,” he says. “Onomatopoeia,” she replies, “O-N-O-M-A-T-O-P-O-E-I-A. I didn't like who I was becoming, so I quit.”), graduated cum laude from Culver with a degree in Political Science.

“Ugh,” she says, scowling at the screen.

“What?” he asks around a spoonful of ice cream.

“They said I graduated cum laude.”

“They got lots of stuff wrong about me, too.” For instance, he never _actually_ punched Hitler.

“That's the thing, they didn't get it wrong. It's just that I _told_ everyone I graduated summa cum laude.”

“Oh. Why'd you do that?” Cum laude sounds pretty great to him.

“Because, ugh...” She grabs the remote and mutes the TV, then turns to him. “Because one of my frenemies--”

“How many frenemies do you have?”

“Many. Anyway, my high school frenemy Emma was in all the AP classes I was in, as well as Model UN and debate club, and she always did better than me, right? Got As when I got Bs, won every debate, got loads of UN awards, dated the guy who went on to play that guy in _One Tree Hill_ , never had sloppy-drunk, or any-drunk, pictures of herself posted on Facebook. Then she got into _Harvard_ , and got an internship with Obama's campaign, _at Obama HQ in Chicago_ , while I was handing out flyers in the ass-end of Virginia. I mean, _she met him_ , like... ugh. But! She only got magna cum laude, so I saw my opportunity to have people think I'd done something better than her.” She takes a deep breath and pushes her hair back primly. “So, yeah.”

He blinks. The fact that she felt the need to lie about her grades, when the difference between her and this other girl was a couple of percent right at the top of the grading scale kind of boggles his mind. He barely survived through high school with Cs.

“She probably didn't tase Thor, though,” he says, “or work for a secret government agency. And she's definitely not engaged to Captain America.”

Darcy grins and leans over. “Very true,” she says, inches from his mouth, then gives him a long, slow kiss that makes his toes curl. She slides one hand along his thigh and he spreads his legs a little. “Captain,” she whispers, then looks down. “Are you pl-- Did you eat the entire tub?”

It takes a moment for his mind to change course. “Huh? Oh...” He looks at the empty tub of ice cream in his hands. “You know you have to take it away from me if you want me to stop.”

“Is that the only thing I have to take away from you to make you stop?” she asks. She traces her fingers along the inner seam of his pants, and it feels very nice, but...

“What?”

She shakes her head. “I was trying to turn it into innuendo, but it didn't work. Let's have sex.”

-

He gets a text from Tony the next day when he's sitting on the kitchen counter, sticking the backsplash to the wall. It says, 'the package has arrived, agent r'.

 _What?_ , he texts back.

_the package. it has been delivered to the coordinates agreed upon._

Steve sighs and rubs at his face, smearing grout across his forehead. _Tony, what are you talking about?_

_goddamnit, come get ur fucking rings, i'm not running a jewellery store here._

He cleans up and gets into Manhattan without telling Darcy, who's still at work and actually in a better position to pick them up. He wants it to be a surprise for her, though, and he doesn't want her to worry about the cost again. Steve has more money than he'll ever know what to do with, he may as well spend of it on something as important as this.

Jarvis lets him in when he gets there, with a promise that Tony will be out soon and that Steve is welcome to the leftover food in the kitchen. His stomach growls in response, and he rolls his eyes, heading in there. He hasn't eaten in over an hour and a half.

When he gets there, Bruce is sitting at the kitchen island, behind an assortment of different kinds of food on silver trays, with his nose in a tablet.

“Dr Banner?”

Bruce looks up, blinking rapidly, then looks around, as if he's surprised to find himself in the kitchen. “Oh, uh, hi, Captain Rogers. Tony said you'd be dropping by.”

“Call me Steve,” he says, hesitantly checking out the food. Canapés, he identifies, which aren't his favourite kind of food, they just make him feel hungrier when he's done eating them. He doesn't like miniature food.

“Then call me Bruce,” Bruce says, and points to one tray. “The vol-au-vents are really good.”

“I'm okay,” he says, and his stomach immediately growls in disagreement. Bruce raises his eyebrows. “Well, is there any... chocolate?”

“There's cake in the fridge.”

“Am I allowed to eat it?” he asks, and the corner of Bruce's mouth turns up.

“Tony said you could have whatever you wanted; it's all leftovers from the party last night.” 

Steve walks over to the fridge and opens it; there are a lot of containers wrapped in foil, all stacked on top of each other. Steve spots half a chocolate cake at the back of the fridge and pulls it out.

“What was the party for?” he asks, as he grabs a fork and sits down near Bruce. He glances at Bruce's tablet, but Bruce shuts it down before he can see anything.

Bruce shrugs. “They have a lot of parties. I just stayed in my room.”

“Your room?”

“Tony gave me a room for when I'm here.”

“Oh... well, that's nice.” He considers asking Bruce how he is, but it seems a little insensitive; last time they saw each other, General Ross was trying to take him down with Hulk-strength sedatives and a squad of soldiers who followed his every order. It made Steve sick to see everything he believed in twisted into something awful. It's been a few weeks, but it still weighs on his mind, the things that people did in pursuit of becoming like him, to themselves and others. Captain Blonsky destroyed himself just to be a little better, a little faster, a little stronger. And he damn near killed Steve, just beat him into the ground until Hulk stopped him. It was more brutal than Loki, maybe even than Schmidt. Hulk's nothing like that, there's none of that malevolence, that fear that gets under your skin and makes your hair stand on end.

“So, I hear you're getting married.”

“Huh? Oh.” Steve lowers his fork. “Uh, yeah.”

Bruce nods. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks. It's um, I guess it's a little fast...”

“Life's short,” Bruce says, and picks up one of the little pastry canapé things.

“I'm not sure that really works for me, though,” he points out and digs back into the cake.

“Oh, you're still a kid, don't worry.”

“I'm not a kid, I'm almost thirty,” he argues.

“A kid,” Bruce repeats, smiling. Steve twists his mouth in response, and continues demolishing the cake. Bruce turns his tablet back on and starts working on it; he thinks he's being discreet, but it's obvious to Steve that he's trying to hide his work. Steve guesses it's understandable, after everything he's been through, even though he _really_ doesn't have to worry, since mathematical formulae may as well be hieroglyphics, for all the sense they make to Steve.

Tony arrives when Steve's almost finished eating, all covered in grease and some kind of unidentifiable grime. “How did I know you'd go straight for the cake?”

Steve looks down at the cleared plate. “Bruce said I could.”

Tony grins. “Yeah, it's fine, I hid everything Pepper wanted. C'mon, let's get you those rings before I melt them down and use them for my suit.”

“Your suit?”

“That amount of platinum would be perfect for some of the finishings.” Tony raises an eyebrow and beckons Steve to follow, before leaving without so much as a backward glance.

Steve sighs and gets up to go after him.

“Good luck,” Bruce calls softly.

The rings really are very nice. Overpriced, but nice. 

“Neil does good work, huh?” Tony asks, biting at his nails, which is fairly disgusting considering he has God knows what under them.

“Yeah. You'd better give me his address so that I can send him the cheque. I actually thought he was going to be here.”

“Ah, don't worry about,” Tony says, and starts to buff his nails on his t-shirt. 

Steve places the boxes carefully in his jacket pocket and frowns at him. “Doesn't he want to get paid?”

Tony shrugs. “Bill's been settled, don't worry about it,” he says, and wanders further into the living room, picking up a rag from the couch to clean off his hands with. Steve follows.

“What do you mean, 'the bill's been settled'?”

“You aren't that dense, Stevie. I paid it for you. I have the money, don't worry. This way, S.H.I.E.L.D. won't be able to track your expenses, because you know they are all up in your financial accounts.”

That gives Steve pause – he'd never thought that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s grip would be _that_ invasive, though he's not sure why he's surprised – but he keeps following Tony, as Tony moves around the room, seemingly picking things up at random. “It's twenty grand, Tony, that's not like buying me a coffee at Starbucks. That's _ridiculous_.”

“You don't know, it could be a really fancy Starbucks. Wait, you know Starbucks?”

“ _Tony_.”

Tony turns around to face him, with a bored look on his face. “Look, don't ruin my chance to buy your friendship, okay? I've done it with all my other friends: shoes for Pepper, expensive weapons contracts for Rhodey, shiny cars for Happy. Think of it as me investing in you remaining all adorable and smitten, because you are way less of a douche these days.”

Steve narrows his eyes. It's like the pot calling the kettle black, really, since he only finds Tony bearable to be around about twenty five percent of the time. He guesses, though, that to Tony twenty grand is pocket change, and he's never seen anyone other than Pepper win an argument with him in a satisfying manner.

“This is a gift,” Steve says, “I'm not going to owe you for this in the future.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Sure, whatever, you're not selling your soul to me.”

It just feels like he is. He pats his jacket. “Well, thanks then, I guess.”

“Such gratitude, I'm overwhelmed,” Tony mutters.

“Yeah...” Steve rubs at his neck. “So, Bruce is staying here?”

“Yup, got here yesterday.”

“How long's he going to be here for?”

Tony drops the rag back onto the couch, and leans against the back of it. “I don't know. He was getting a little skittish staying at S.H.I.E.L.D. and I think they were a little nervous having him, too.”

Steve nods. “How's he doing? Last time I saw him, he seemed pretty shaken.”

“Yeah, well, he's going to be even more shaken when he finds out that Ross's court martial has magically disappeared.”

Steve goes cold for a moment; Ross was arrested after they managed to contain Blonksy, for disobeying orders and putting civilians in danger by trying to use Blonksy to take down the Hulk. It was one of the grossest abuses of power that Steve's ever witnessed, and it made him glad, for the first time, that his commission was voided by his 'death'. 

“They can't do that, can they? How can they do that?”

Tony shrugs. “Friends in high places, I guess. You'd know better than me.”

Steve sets his jaw, feeling a little sick. “Colonel Phillips would never have let something like that happen, he'd have slung him in prison himself.”

Tony shrugs again and picks at his nails in that way that suggests he's trying to make Steve _think_ he's unconcerned, when he's really the opposite. It's taken Steve a while to get that, although it's hardly cut down on the amount of time he spends feeling incredibly frustrated at Tony.

“So, are you gonna tell him?” he asks.

“Nope,” Tony says, “not right now, at least, I think he deserves a little rest. Are you going to tell him?”

“I wish I didn't know, so, no. I think it's going to be hard to keep from him, though.”

“I'm not going to keep it from him, I'm just... not going to bring it up. Do you know how many things I've gotten away with because I didn't mention them to Pepper?”

“Not that many, I'd guess.”

Tony sucks on his teeth for a moment. “Well, it's happened once, at least.”

-

Darcy sends him a text in the late afternoon: 'wrkin late wait up'. He wants to message back and say that he'll come meet her because it'll be late and dark and maybe not very safe, but he knows that she doesn't need his protection, and he knows that she'd just get angry at him for trying, like Peggy was when he overstepped boundaries.

It doesn't stop him from fretting about it from the moment she sends the text message to the moment she gets home, at past ten. He braces his hands on the couch to get up.

“Stay there,” she says, kicking her boots off and trying to get out of her coat. He bites his lips to stop from laughing as she fights with it for a minute, flapping the arms uselessly, before finally tugging it off and leaving it on the floor by the front door. Then she stomps over to the couch and sits down on him, tucking her face in his collarbone, and curling into him. “Ughhh,” she moans.

“Hey,” he says, rubbing his hand up and down her back, “how's it going? Work ran long tonight.”

“Lots of shit going down in Wakanda,” she murmurs into his shirt.

“Never heard of it.”

“Mm,” she says, “what're you watching?”

“Some 'reality' show about a haunted house. I'm pretty sure it's made up.”

“I love those shows, such trash.”

“No way I'd stay in a house if it was really haunted. First creepy face in the window and I'd risk losing my damage deposit.”

“I'd protect you,” she mumbles, “I've seen _Ghostbusters_ like a hundred times, I know all the tricks.” She cuddles closer, cold palms pressed against his ribcage, and sighs contentedly. “You give really good hugs, you know.”

He runs his fingers through her hair. “I do my best.”

She hums, her breathing evening out. He plays with her hair for a few more minutes, sparing a few glances at the 'paranormal' reconstruction, before saying, “I got the rings today,” half expecting her to already be asleep.

She stirs a little, and tilts her head back to look at him. “You did?”

“Yeah.”

She stretches her arm out and turns so that she's half straddling him. “Let's see 'em, then.”

“'kay,” he murmurs, grabbing the boxes off the side table. He flips open the box with her engagement ring in with his thumb. “Can I... put it on you?”

She holds out her hand, and he takes it gently, sliding the ring on. She lifts her hand and regards it for a second, before grinning and clinking her ring against his. “Cool,” she says, and rests her head on his shoulder again.

“Tony paid for it.”

“What?”

“He insisted. He'd already paid Neil by the time I got there, and then he wouldn't let me pay him back...”

“Hm,” she says, “now he's got something over you.”

“That's what I said. I feel like I've sold my soul to the devil.”

“Least I got a really nice ring out of it,” she says softly, her eyes sliding shut again.

“Want me to make you something to eat?” he asks.

“Nope, ate at my desk, McDonalds.” She pats his chest and shifts to get more comfortable, and he supposes she's settled in for the night, now.

He watches the end of the ghost story show, then flicks through the channels aimlessly while Darcy snores like a freight train against him. He tries to move her into a less stressful position for her poor diaphragm, but there doesn't seem to be one, and after he's watched the beginning of _The Princess Bride_ , the middle of something that he immediately turns off when he catches sight of a nipple, and the end of _Transformers_ , he gathers her up and takes her to bed. She doesn't wake at all, even when he strips off her jeans and shirt, carefully releases the clasp of her bra and pulls it off, and redresses her in her stolen shirt of his. He tucks her carefully into bed and washes up quickly in the bathroom, dressing in sweatpants and a t-shirt with his shield on it that Darcy gave him before returning to bed and curling around her. 

Despite his size, he's rarely the 'big spoon'; normally she lies on her back and he rests his head on her chest while she runs her fingers through his hair. It's so normal and so soothing, sometimes it's the best part of his day by far, especially recently. It's not as if this is bad, though, and he buries his nose in her hair, slides his left hand over hers until he hears their rings clink together, and closes his eyes.

The thing that Captain Blonsky turned into is bigger than Hulk, it's wider and more deformed, with prominent bones underneath its tough, spiny skin, not at all recognisable as a person the way Steve can see Bruce in Hulk's face. It comprehends words, but it doesn't care, and when Steve cuts his parachute and hits the ground thirty feet away, it snarls at him and flicks Hulk aside like a bug.

Steve runs. He just _fucking runs_ , dropping into a slide and rolling underneath the rubble of a destroyed building. Tony says something in his earpiece, but he can't hear it, it's blurred out and all he can focus on is the thing's footsteps he can see between the crumbling bricks. There's no way out except back into the open, and Tony is yelling something in his ear, but he still can't hear it.

It tears through the debris of the building like wrapping paper, flinging it aside until Steve is exposed, looking up at the monstrous thing. He raises his shield blindly as its fist comes down and the vibrations of the impact make his teeth feel like they're going to rattle out of his head but the shield holds, the vibranium stronger than even this. He gets a couple seconds of relief before the shield is ripped wholesale from his hand and tossed aside, and there is nothing he can do, he realises in this moment, against brute strength on this scale; he can't punch, he can't strategise, he can't even get away, because its going to catch him no matter what.

And it does. It grabs him round the middle and slams him into the ground, pauses a second, then does it again, slamming him like a baby thumping a toy into the rug, like Steve's a ragdoll for it to play with.

He has one bright, burning thought: he's going to die. Nothing has been able to kill him so far, not even time, but this will kill him, this will leave him broken and bloody for Darcy to view in the morgue.

He doesn't even register when the onslaught stops, when he's dropped from ten foot up; he only hears Hulk roar of anger, and then Tony in his ear, his words an indistinct burble, and his arms around Steve's waist, lifting him up and away, leaving him to look at his blood smeared into the ground as they gain altitude.

His whole body throbs as Tony flies him to safety, putting him up high somewhere, and his vision on one side is red from the blood seeping into his eye. He can feel that his face isn't right, that his skin has been torn open along one side, and Tony's cool metal fingers are trying to probe it lightly, tugging his cowl back from his face to get a better look. Steve says something that sounds slurred to his own ears and pushes Tony away before hunching in on himself, circling his knees with his arms.

“Steve, Steve...?”

He wakes up like this, curled in on himself, phantom pain lingering in his jaw.

“Steve, are you awake?” Darcy asks.

“Yeah,” he says quietly.

“Can I touch you?”

He nods his head jerkily. “Yeah.” A warm hand presses against his back as soon as the word's out, fingers stroking up and down slowly.

“Okay,” she says. She sounds rattled, unsure of herself, and he hates that. He wants to say he's sorry for doing this to her, but his breathing just won't settle down enough to allow it. “Okay, hey,” she says gently, “I'm just going to get a wash cloth, I'll be right back.”

The bed bounces as she gets up, and he tries to unwind his tensed muscles, but they won't respond. He's drenched in sweat, his t-shirt stuck to his back, his face hot, and he misses her as soon as she leaves, a panicky feeling that gnaws at his gut. He'd follow her, but he feels so disoriented that he doubts he'd be able to succeed in standing up right now. He's always this way after a nightmare, but it just feels so much worse this time, it's like the fear he felt in his dream has seeped into his bones.

“Steve?” Darcy says softly. He lets out a sigh of relief at her voice. “Do you mind if I turn the light on?”

“I, uh...” The question stumps him, he has absolutely no idea how to answer it and no idea why he can't.

“It's okay,” she follows up quickly, “we can leave it off.”

She sits down on the bed in front of him and presses the cool wash cloth to his forehead. “Better?”

“Yeah,” he says, leaning into it. 

“My mom used to do this when I had bad dreams,” she says, wiping it over his cheeks and down around his chin. “I mean, I know that yours are about more important things than, like, Chucky, or whatever...”

“Thank you,” he says.

“Yeah.” She cups his cheek in her hand for a moment and kisses his forehead. “Let's get you out of this gross thing, okay?”

He nods, stretching his legs out a little. Darcy crawls forward and straddles them, reaching down to tug his t-shirt up. She's efficient, gentle with him, not how she'd normally be undressing him – she's normally rougher with him, pushes him around, digs her nails into his hips, bites like a devil. The last time she was this gentle, she was washing blood off him in the shower.

She pulls the t-shirt over his head and drops it to the ground. “Okay,” she murmurs, and picks the wash cloth up again, wiping it across his back. 

He rests his forehead against her shoulder and sighs. “Thanks, Darce.”

“S'okay,” she mutters. She sits back, presses one palm against his side, and wipes the cloth along his stomach, smiling when he twitches from the cold. “You're really hot, you know that?”

He laughs softly. “Yeah, I know.”

“Better?” she asks again, still cooling him down with the cloth. His breathing is coming a little easier with her close.

“Yeah. Sorry for waking you up.”

“Dude,” she says, and shakes her head. “Wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.”

She nods. “Think you can go back to sleep?”

“I--” The thought of it sends a spike of anxiety through him. “I don't think so.”

“All right,” she says, “how about a midnight kitchen raid? Well, four am raid, anyway.”

“No, you should, you should go back to bed, I'll be okay, you don't have to...”

“Hey, I gotta be up in an hour and a half, and Steve-” She pauses for a moment to cup his cheek again and tilt his face up. “-you think I don't know that if I leave you alone, you're going to eat through everything?”

He rubs his cheek against her palm; it feels so good to be loved like this, without conditions on how strong or brave he has to be. He hasn't had that since he was a child; there was Bucky, and that was similar, but rightly or wrongly, most of the time he felt like a burden. He was too weak to do the kinds of manual labour jobs that Bucky did and got tired too easily to do jobs with longer hours and better pay. He sold newspapers on the street well past the age of most newsboys, took in as much illustration work as he could get, but he still got sick: standing outside in the cold yelling about the extra edition of the _New York Herald Tribune_ (which wasn't even one of the _good_ newspapers) damn near killed him one winter. Bucky always brought in the bulk of the money, always shaved a bit off his food budget every week to add to the tin of pennies for Steve's doctor's appointments. Steve hated it, he was always too proud to accept help that wasn't forced upon him, but he'd have died without Bucky. He doesn't want to become an emotional burden on Darcy the same way, but she makes it so easy to lean on.

“Okay,” he says, “thanks.”

She tuts. “You don't have to thank me for being nice to you, stupid, that's, like, the barest minimum you're supposed to do when you're engaged to someone.”

He shrugs. “Still, thanks.”

She rolls her eyes and reaches over to ruffle his hair. “You're totally hopeless, dude.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ice cream thing is shamelessly stolen [from Chris Evans](http://boombangbing.tumblr.com/post/15913088695) himself. Because we all know that Chris actually _is_ Cap.
> 
> (I'm starting to think that I should tag this with Steve/food as well.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some D/s (F/m) themes in this chapter - I'm not tagging it as D/s because they don't get anywhere near something established or consistent, but just as a heads-up, it is there.

He goes into the city with her a few hours later – he has a lot more decorating to do, but he really doesn't want to be alone, and there's an undertone to Darcy's voice when she asks if he wants to walk to the subway with her.

They part ways agreeing to meet up for lunch, and he puts his ear buds in, thumbs his iPod on, and walks into Manhattan proper. Valentine's is out in full force now, with only a couple of weeks until the day. He still has no idea what to get Darcy; he browses some stores, but everything seems very brightly coloured, disposable, and overpriced. There's a poster outside a department store suggesting that lingerie should be bought, and Steve briefly considers it before remembering a tirade delivered by Darcy about the construction of attractive bras for larger breasted women that ended with him getting extremely acquainted with her own breasts. He'd also probably die of embarrassment on the spot if he had to ask any salesperson anything.

He winds up in Bryant Park by the late morning, and wanders into the public library. He didn't get to go there much when he was a kid, he was mostly stuck with a run down little library in Brooklyn. By the time he was twelve, he'd read every interesting book they had. These days he doesn't need to go to them at all, he has a steadily increasing number of books and a new bookcase from Ikea that had instructions that defied all logic, but it brings back good memories. His mother didn't really approve of or see the point of comic books and pulps, so she encouraged him to read anything he liked the look of in the children's section, from fairytales and pirate stories to _The Velveteen Rabbit_ and _Winnie the Pooh_. When it was too cold at home, they'd sit at one of the rickety tables, him reading or drawing and her sewing the piecework she'd taken in that week.

He finds an empty spot and pulls his sketchbook out, smoothing his hand over the leather cover for a moment. It's already half full, mostly with drawings of Darcy, and a few of himself too, but he can never get his body quite right, it always seems too bulky and unbalanced in comparison with his face. He flips to a clean page and tries his hand at the intricate architecture of the room he's in; the fiddly details are more of a challenge for him now than they used to be because of his thicker fingers – he keeps smudging the lines with his knuckles and has to very carefully erase around them. Drawing without smudging the lines is so absorbing that he doesn't realise how much time has passed until his phone chimes and nearby patrons look at him irritably. He grabs his sketchbook and his bag and hustles out of the library, unlocking his phone as he goes.

 _lunch brk early. where r u?_ , Darcy's text message reads.

 _Bryant Park, outside the library_ , he replies.

_k ill come over there_

He considers texting back to say he'll go meet her, but he thinks better of it, stakes out a bench to wait at and flips his sketchbook open again, spreading it across his knees. He puts his earbuds back in and switches to the bottom of the page to rough out the groups of tourists hanging around hoping to catch a glimpse of Tony leaving the tower to get groceries, or whatever. It would make Steve want to roll his eyes, but for the little kid wearing an Iron Man helmet and holding a miniature version of Steve's shield. He's pretty sure the kid's dad is holding a backpack with a cartoon of Thor on it, too. The kid takes centre stage in his sketch. 

He's humming along to Bob Dylan when someone taps him on the shoulder. 

“Darce,” he says, tugging his earbud out and grinning up at her. 

Only, it's not her.

“Oh,” he says, looking at a blonde woman in a black pea coat. “Hello?”

“It is you,” she says, sounding relieved. “I wasn't totally sure, and even if...you know, I wasn't sure you'd want people coming up to you, it must get old real fast...”

She seems familiar but he can't quite place her. “Uh, so, do you... want me to sign something?”

“Oh!” she says. “No. Well... no. It's just... you saved me from the aliens? The ones last May,” she adds, as if he needed clarification.

“From the café,” he says suddenly. The guy on the next table told him he should have got her number. All things considered, he's glad he was too oblivious.

“Yeah!” She grins brightly at him and points at the bench. “Can I sit down?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, sure.”

She drops down beside him and smiles. “I never thanked you,” she says.

“It's my job, you don't have to thank me.”

“Still.” She glances over at his sketchbook. “You draw? Wow, you're really good.”

“I'm okay.”

“You don't look like the arty type. No offence, I just mean...” She frowns and shakes her head. “Sorry, I'm making kind of an ass of myself.”

He smiles. “No, you're not. I used to look like an arty type.”

“Oh yeah, I saw a documentary about how they made you all... big. Did that really happen?”

“That really happened.”

She raises her eyebrows. “That's really weird.”

“Yeah.”

There's a pause that stretches on a little bit too long before she speaks again. “I'm Beth, by the way.”

“Steve,” he says, holding out his hand. She takes it, colour rising on her cheeks.

“So, are you waiting for someone, Steve?” she says, slipping her hand from his grip slowly. Her voice sounds a little shaky.

“I am, yeah.”

“Oh. Your girlfriend? I saw a picture of her online, she's really pretty.”

He smiles. “Yes. On both counts.”

“Well,” she says, drumming her fingers on her knees, “I guess I should get going, I'm only on a break.” She smiles awkwardly and leans forward to stand up.

“Okay. It was nice to meet you properly, Beth,” he says, and goes to offer his hand again, but she stumbles getting up and he reaches out to steady her by the waist without even thinking. Her face goes bright red, and his probably isn't too far off, either.

She clears her throat, and he tries for a reassuring smile. “Uh, thanks. You and your girlfriend should come to the café sometime, I'm sure my boss has some kind of superhero discount.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

She waves at him as she leaves, and passes right by Darcy, though she doesn't recognise her. Darcy raises her eyebrows, looking between the two of them suspiciously, and Steve lets his fingers curl back into his palm.

“I was going to give you something, but now I'm not so sure,” she says when she reaches him. “Exactly why are you waving at pretty women?”

“She came up to me, I saved her from the Chitauris, I didn't...” He trails off as she smiles, and glares half-heartedly at her.

“You're adorable,” she says. “Here, I got you something.”

He peers at the paper wrapped taco she presents him, and grins. “Disgusting street food, my favourite!”

She sits down next to him with a plastic tub of noodles and watches him closely for a few seconds before saying, “Sooo, what was up with the blonde chick?”

He coughs, misjudges where his mouth is, and gets mustard on his cheek. Darcy hands him a napkin. “Thanks. Uh, she's works at a café near here. I went there once, before... everything, and then she was caught in the attack. They interviewed her afterwards.”

“Oh, she's _that_ blonde chick. I had to watch all those interviews, make sure there was nothing S.H.I.E.L.D. should know about; she is totally hot for you, man.”

“No, she isn't. Is she?”

“I'm afraid to say she is.” She twiddles her fork in the noodles and shoves them in her mouth. “It's okay, I'll protect you. From ghosts and girls.”

He wipes the sauce that she's sprayed at him off his jacket. “I'm holding you to that.”

“You can hold anything to me,” she says, and winks.

“That's what she said?”

She grins. “Yes, it is. Hey, let's see what you drew.”

They chat aimlessly while Darcy looks at his new drawings, and when he's finished the taco, she wordlessly hands him a bag of chips from her bag.

“Hey, so, I wanted to talk to you about something,” she says after a while.

“Is somethin' wrong?” he asks, although it comes out a little garbled through the chips, and a few of them escape onto her lap. “Sorry.”

She brushes them off. “Now we're even. And no, nothing's wrong, I've just been thinking about some stuff.”

Despite her assurance, he can't help the sinking feeling in his stomach. Suddenly he isn't hungry any more. “What kinda stuff?”

She glances around carefully before answering. “Like, weddings and stuff. I was talking to my mom earlier, and she brought up some stuff that I hadn't considered. So, hm, we're different religions, right? I mean, you're sort of religious, and I'm sort of culturally Jewish, but they're still different.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs. He'd never considered that the religion thing might be an issue; she's never seemed concerned with it at all, and since the war he's been finding himself less and less interested in going to church. He did grow up with a lot of Jewish kids, and some of their families were resistant to them marrying outside of their religion, but her parents don't seem the type to put any restrictions on her, and Darcy, well, she'd never let anyone tell her what to do, would she?

“Yeah, so marrying in a church is sort of a problem. I have a cousin who married a Catholic girl in church and they had to go to marriage counselling beforehand and then he had to promise that he wouldn't try to raise their kids Jewish, and no way, _no way_ I'm getting marriage advice off a guy who hasn't even unwrapped his dick, and I'd never promise not to raise hypothetical children Jewish even though I wouldn't care if they ended up wanting to worship Satan. Just... no.”

“Okay?” His stomach growls, and it has nothing to do with hunger.

“And if we got married in a synagogue, you'd have to do similar things,” she barrels on, “which I'm not gonna let you do, okay, not happening. And sometimes you can get priests and rabbis to perform ceremonies together but they get awkward about it and it seems like a hell of a lot of stress and blah.”

“So, what're you, what d'you wanna do?” he practically mumbles, feeling completely pathetic.

“Well.” She bites her lip and widens her eyes. “I was thinking, I have a couple weeks vacation coming up so how about we just totally run away and get married somewhere?” It comes out in such a rush that he takes a moment to catch up with her.

“Oh,” he says, and then starts laughing shakily.

“Hey,” she says, and pokes him in the stomach. “It's not that stupid an idea.”

“I'm not laughing 'cause of that,” he says. He can feel his face do all sorts of funny things outside of his control. “I'm just relieved.”

“Relieved?” she repeats, then narrows her eyes. “Did you think...? _Steve_.” She smacks him lightly on the shoulder, then pulls him in for a hug. “You know I'm way more straight forward than that.”

He rests his chin on her shoulder. “I know, I know, I'm just... neurotic, y'know?”

“I know,” she agrees, smooths his hair back and kisses him on the cheek. “So, can I take your mini panic attack as a yes to my proposition?”

“Yeah. Yes, yes, definitely.”

-

He goes home after lunch, feeling lighter than he has in days; he's pretty sure he gets strange looks on the subway because he's smiling so much, and he slips his engagement ring back on as soon as he gets into the apartment. The afternoon goes by in a blur of motivated painting and decorating, and the early evening is occupied by an attempt to cook lasagna that Darcy eats with slightly pained expression on her face.

“So, where'd you want to elope to?” he asks later, once they're on the couch, watching TV. He can't actually believe that he's talking about elopement in relation to himself, still can't believe the marriage thing at all.

“I don't know. Paris? Venice? Prague? I guess Europe isn't so exciting for you, though.”

He tips his head. “I dunno, I've been to... Paris and Prague, but not Venice. Passed through Rome once, but it was night, so I didn't get to see anything. I'm better at French than Italian, though.”

“You speak French?”

“Badly, but yeah. German was the one I found easiest, though.”

She shuts off the TV and scoots around to face him. “Say something.”

“In which language?”

“German.”

“Okay, uh... ich, um... will wirklich dich heiraten.”

She lays her hands over her heart. “So romantic. What does it mean?”

“'I really want to marry you'. At least I think that's what I said, I hope I didn't accidentally insult your mother, or something.”

“Aw, Steve,” she says, reaching up to pat his cheek. “It's really bad that I can't speak German, actually, you'll have to teach me sometime.”

“I can do that,” he says. Darcy smiles and rubs her thumb over his cheekbone, then leans in and kisses him gently, the tip of her tongue ghosting along his bottom lip until he opens his mouth.

“Hey,” she says, drawing back a bit. He bites back a whine. “Know what day it is today?”

He shakes his head.

“Today is ten weeks since you lost your virginity. I guess we probably could have held on a little longer, as it turns out, huh?”

“Yeah,” he replies, then has a thought and tries to arrange his face as seriously as possible. “Actually, I was thinking... maybe we should stop having sex until the wedding night. People do that, don't they?”

“Oh, uh...” Darcy flounders, and Steve bites the inside of his mouth. “Yes? I suppose we... could do that.” 

Steve feels his face twitch, and Darcy smacks him in the chest. “Asshole!”

He holds his hands up and spreads his palms. “I'm sorry! I just wanted to see what you'd say!”

“You're not funny,” she says with such offended vehemency that he breaks into helpless laughter. “Asshole,” she repeats, “I should withhold sex to teach you a lesson.”

He hiccups back the rest of his laughter. “No, no, you don't have to do that...”

“Or maybe I could teach you a lesson in another way,” she ponders. He raises his eyebrows, and she slides over to straddle his hips, shoves his shoulders back against the couch. “Should I teach you a lesson, Steve?” she asks, resting her forehead against his.

“Yeah,” he murmurs.

She forces him back some more, kisses him roughly, and starts massaging his dick through his pants. With her other hand she tugs his shirt free and lightly drags her fingernails over his stomach, carefully to hit all his ticklish spots until he's squirming underneath her and half laughing, half moaning into her mouth.

She trails her mouth along the underside of his jaw, and sucks on the sensitive spot just under his ear.

“Ngh,” he groans, digging his heels into the carpet, and then jerking his hips when she lets go of his dick. 

She works his belt off with both hands, unzips his pants, and palms his erection, thumb pressing against the tip. “Hips,” she whispers in his ear.

“Uh,” he grunts. Her thumb is still circling the head of his dick, and it feels like he could come just from this. “What?”

“Lift your hips up,” she says whispers, then bites his earlobe.

“Oh,” he responds, lifting his hips enough for her to pull his pants and boxers down to his thighs before collapsing back to the couch. She resettles on his legs, and sets a steady pace, her grip just the right side of too tight, and turns her attention back to that spot behind his ear. He's mostly managing to hold it together until her free hand slides up his shirt; she cups his left pec and rubs her thumb against his nipple and he can't help all the noises the bubble out of him. “Oh God,” he groans, “Oh God, Darce, Dar, Dar--”

“Mm-hm?” she responds, sending vibrations all down his neck. She squeezes his dick harder and he rocks his hips desperately.

“God,” he repeats, and arches his back just to get a little closer to her. She hums some more and bites down on his neck, sending him scrabbling for something to hold on to; he is so, so, so close to coming that all he can muster is a long, low whine. Darcy strokes his dick and rubs his nipple faster, murmurs something he doesn't catch, and then... just stops. She lets go of him, slides off his lap, and wipes her hand on his pant leg.

“Wha--?” he groans as she gets up and looks back at him over her shoulder.

“I said I was going to teach you a lesson, didn't I? Don't move a _muscle_.” Her tone is a little dismissive, and it sends the most incredible rush of arousal through him; he can feel his cheeks burn and his breathing quicken with it. She flicks her hair over her shoulder and walks away, into the bathroom, and closes the door behind her. He watches for a couple of seconds longer, feeling slow and confused, then drops his head back against the couch. It feels like his whole body is throbbing, he could come right now if he touched himself, but she told him not to move. God, she just left him like this and he's so turned on by it that he has to close his eyes and force himself to breathe before he starts making noises loud enough for Mrs Rossi to hear. He could probably will his erection away if he tried hard enough, but the high of it is _so good_ , and he guesses she'll come back eventually. She has to, she's in the bathroom, there's no way out through there.

He rubs the soles of his feet into the carpet for the friction, and thinks about what she's going to do to him; he can practically feel her hands on him; if he thinks hard enough, he can recall the scent of her body wash as if she's sitting right next to him. He hazards a look down at himself and groans – he's hard and red and leaking, making a mess of his pants, and it's kind of awful to look at but it still sends a fresh wave of arousal through him. He bites his lip and presses his head back against the couch cushion.

He hears the faint click of the bathroom door opening immediately and holds his breath. Maybe she'll just walk off and leave him alone in the apartment like this – he's not sure whether he wants that to happen or not.

“Steve?” she says uncertainly.

“Yeah?” he grunts.

“You're still sitting there?”

“You told me not to... move,” he manages to grind out.

“Yeah...” she murmurs, and then her fingers are in his hair, sliding across his scalp and tugging at the strands, and he starts shuddering and can't stop.

“God, please, Darcy,” he moans.

She presses a kiss to his temple. “Okay,” she whispers, and lets go of him long enough to come round to the front of the couch. The cushions on either side of him dip as she climbs on, retaking her place straddling his legs. He opens his eyes long enough to see her lick her lips and lean in, then closes them again when she covers his mouth with her own, and grips his erection.

She takes her time with the kiss, making it sloppy and deep, replaces her hand in his hair and strokes his dick with the other, until he's sure he's just going to come apart, he's shuddering so much. His legs are shaking a little with the effort of not going completely crazy, and he can't regulate his breathing at all any more, leaving him gasping and squirming beneath her.

She runs her fingers through his hair soothingly, then drops her hand and gently cups his balls for a moment before she presses her fingers underneath and finds his prostate, and then it's all over. His hips jerk forward of their own accord, and white bursts behind his eyelids from squeezing them shut so tight. Darcy breaks the kiss and finishes him off, stroking him through every last second of it, until his muscles finally relax and he sinks back into the couch.

“You okay?” Darcy says. He feels something rough against his dick as she cleans him up, and enjoys the aftershocks that shoot through him.

“Mm hm,” he mumbles, the intensity of his orgasm leaving him feeling drained and hazy.

“Okay,” she says, tucking him back into his pants and zipping them up again. “I kind of thought you were going to be annoyed with me. I mean, I thought you'd probably be into it, but I also thought there was, like, a fifty/fifty chance you'd have finished yourself off and be pissed when I came back out.”

“Mm,” he hums. “No.”

“Well, I can _see_ that,” she says, laughter in her voice. She presses her palm to his cheek and runs her thumb along his bottom lip. “Damn, you're pretty.”

He snorts. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Think you can get up?”

“In a minute,” he says, and opens his eyes slowly. Darcy's still sitting on his legs, her cheeks pink, her hair falling messily around her face. “Hey, did you-- d'you want me to...?”

She frowns at him as he sort of motions towards her groin, then smiles mischievously. “Ah. No, I... took care of myself in the bathroom.”

He bites his lip and swallows heavily.

“Like the sound of that, huh?” she says, leaning in again.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, before she kisses him. It's easier to just enjoy the kiss without the heady anticipation of an impending orgasm, to get lost in her mouth and skillful hands gently combing his hair back. He slides his hands up her shirt and runs his fingers along the band of her bra, while she plays with his hair, and it's all going so well until his stomach growls. He tries his best to ignore it, but slightly hungry always turns into really hungry in only a few minutes, and sex is an excellent way to burn calories.

“I know when I'm not wanted,” Darcy says, smiling against his cheek before sliding off his lap. “Come on, there are some frozen pizzas in the freezer.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've tentatively decided that there are going to be twelve chapters, though it may go up or down one, depending on where I decide that the chapter breaks should come.

Celebrity is hardly a new thing. Steve remembers Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons's gossip columns, about all the private and mundane parts of celebrities' lives, though they went about it in a much nicer way than what he sees these days. So he knows that their wedding will be the talk of every magazine and entertainment show, and that in this day and age they'll get hounded for information about it if they try to do it privately. Darcy tells him the next day that they'll look into where they could have a _really_ private wedding when she's home from work, and he sets about laying the laminate flooring in the kitchen after ripping up the disgusting old lino. He'd prefer real wood floors, but he also doesn't want people in the apartment, which is going to be a problem when it comes to the broken counter top. 

He's on the floor under a pile of plastic wood when his phone buzzes in his pocket. The text he's got is from Tony, and all it says is, 'they're assholes man'.

 _Who are assholes?_ he texts back, and puts the phone on the floor to return to working out which way up these things are meant to go. He assumes that Tony's run out of people to complain to (easy to do when there are only three people who'll even put up with that temporarily), and has set his sights on Steve next.

A few minutes later, the phone rings, vibrating across the floor insistently before he picks it up.

“Hello?”

“Shit,” Tony says.

“Hello, Tony.” Some of these pieces need to be cut down to fit into the corners, but he doesn't have anything to cut them with.

“You haven't been online today, have you? What am I saying, it's you, of course you haven't.”

He frowns and switches some of his attention to Tony. “What's going on?”

“Man, I really don't want to be the one to tell you this,” Tony says.

Steve puts down the laminate. “Tell me _what_?”

“You should probably go on TMZ.”

“ _Tony_.”

“Just do it.”

Steve sets his jaw and gets up, heading into the living room to get his laptop. He tries again to get Tony to tell him, but he just keeps saying to go on the website, and Steve is starting to get a really bad feeling about this.

“There yet?” Tony asks after a couple of minutes.

“It's still starting up,” Steve replies, staring anxiously at the spinning icon.

“You're using Windows, aren't you?” Tony says with noticeable disgust in his voice. “Philistine.”

Steve doesn't bother responding, just opens up the browser and types the web address one handed. He finds it depressing that he knows the website already. The computer struggles with loading the page for a good two or three minutes – 'traffic', Tony says – but it eventually pops up, and the first thing he sees is: HEARTBREAK FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA'S GIRL. He blinks, makes some kind of sound that Tony replies, 'yeah...' to, and scrolls down the page to a picture of him and Beth, him with his hand on her waist. Somehow the photographer managed to take the shot in the exact split second that neither of them looked horribly uncomfortable. He scrolls little further, and underneath there's a picture of Darcy holding a tissue to her nose, looking miserable. It's from several weeks ago, when she caught a cold and still had to go into work, but out of context, it looks almost exactly like she's been crying.

“How long has this been up?” he asks quietly.

“About... five hours,” Tony says. 

“Darcy's seen this, hasn't she?”

Tony sighs. “I don't see how she could have avoided it, it's been picked up by some news channels now. The disreputable ones.”

“Oh God,” he groans, rubbing his hand over his face. “She hasn't called me.”

“She probably didn't want to ruin your whole day... Like I just have. Sorry about that.”

“It's not your fault,” he says, and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Hey, look, I've been accused of cheating on Pepper at least a dozen times,” Tony says, and Steve has the very uncharitable thought that at least some of those accusations were probably _true_ , but then he feels guilty for thinking it, because Tony is actually trying to help, for once. “None of them were true,” Tony continues, “In fact, Pepper has a whole legal department dedicated to defamation of character suits. Do you want me to get a name off her?”

“I-- No, I... I don't know. The horse is out of the barn, now, so what's the point?”

“Revenge?”

“I'm not really thinking about that right now.”

“Yeah, I guess you wouldn't be.”

There's a pause, and Steve reads the salacious story of how he's cheating on Darcy, forbidden rendezvous with a cute blonde and all. He sighs and sits back. “I'm gonna go. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Sure,” Tony says, “keep that revenge thing in mind, okay?”

“I will,” he says, and hangs up. He looks back at the screen, and he knows he should just close the laptop, but he feels compelled to keep scrolling. There are hundreds of comments on the entry; he skips down to them and reads the first one: _not surprised, look at him, total dudebro. Hired government muscle, probably dumb as a box of rocks._ He frowns, and reads further down: _did anyone really think that a guy who looks like him wasn't going to getting as much pussy as he could? I mean, she's got a great pair of tits but--_

He slams the lid closed and glares at the computer. Darcy does always say that you should never read the comments. Now he knows why.

He decides against calling Darcy, because he has no idea what he'd say, or how he'd say it. He thinks – he hopes – she wouldn't believe any of this, but what if she does? What if she's angry at him, or humiliated, or just pissed that her name's been dragged through the mud because of him? He doesn't know what he'd say.

He goes back to the laminate, and does a really poor job of it, before giving up and distracting himself first with push-ups, then with eating half the sweet food in the fridge. For a couple of hours he tries watching TV, but every time he flicks through the channels, he hits a news or entertainment program reporting the 'breaking news'. He ends up wandering around the apartment, tidying up whatever's even slightly out of place.

At seven, he hears a key in the lock and darts out of the bedroom to watch her come in. She dumps her bag on the ground, slams the door closed, and tugs her coat off angrily, all the while muttering to herself.

“Darcy?” he ventures nervously. 

She looks up, as if surprised by his presence, and her expression is completely unreadable to him. She drops her coat to the floor and crosses the room to him, reaching up as she nears him, and slips her hands over his cheeks.

“Hey,” she says, and kisses him. He fists his hands in the back of her shirt, relieved.

“I have to tell you something,” she says when she pulls back.

“I already know,” he replies. She looks pained before kissing him again, then takes his hands in hers. “I'm sorry that I didn't tell you that I...” He doesn't know how to put it. Touched Beth? That seems odd, people touch each other all the time, it doesn't mean they're _cheating on their partners_. “She tripped and--”

“Steve,” she says, putting her fingers on his lips. “Seriously, you're not the problem here.”

“How,” he says, muffled against her fingers before she smiles and drops them. “How bad was it at work?”

She shakes her head. “So bad, I got all these snide looks and comments, and when I was out getting coffee I got accosted by some asshole with a camera asking me how I was 'coping'. I asked him how he was coping with his face.”

Steve laughs. “Bet he liked that. But are you okay?”

“Eh, I'm tough.”

“I know you're tough, but...” He raises a hand and runs his fingers along her jaw gently. “It's not right, it's not fair on you.”

“Sure it is,” she says, “I'm marrying America's sweetheart, I'm gonna be public enemy number one soon.”

“But that's not fair.”

“Steve.” She reaches up and threads her fingers through his hair, tilting his head down to her. “Stop worrying. I grew up in this crazy celebrity obsessed world, I know the deal.”

“I'm just--”

“ _Steve_.”

He smiles. “Okay, but I still don't think it's fair,” he says quickly, before she can tell him to stop. She narrows her eyes at him, and he smiles wider.

They go through their usual routine, eat, shower, have sex, and fall into bed around eleven. Darcy has the next day off, so she's in no mood to go to sleep, and instead turns her attention, and her fingers, to tickling him instead. He never used to be ticklish, but like with everything else, he feels these sensations so much stronger these days. Every time she grazes her fingertips over a new spot, she looks up and scrutinises his face to see if it's the one. He has to work very hard at keeping his face neutral.

“Man, you're so skinny,” Darcy says, circling her hands around his waist. “Sometimes I wonder how all your organs fit.”

He lifts his head and looks down at her. “You think about my internal organs?”

“To be fair, I wonder about it for all really skinny people,” she says, trailing her fingers along his side, hitting the ticklish spot right above his hip bone. He sets his jaw and she sighs, disappointed.

“I think my organs are fine,” he says. 

“I'm not complaining,” she says, “I love your skinny hips.”

“Then you'd've loved me before. I was that wide all over.”

“I would have loved you before,” she agrees, and flattens her hand over his stomach. He smiles and reaches down to twist her hair around his fingers. “And wait, you were this skinny before?”

“Yeah, my legs got longer and bigger, and my top half went crazy, but my waist and hips stayed pretty much the same. It took me a while to find my balance, being so top heavy; it was like looking at myself in a funhouse mirror. It took even longer to get used to looking in the mirror and seeing this bulky meathead staring back at me.” 

“Wait, what?” She sits up and twists around to look at him. He's distracted for a moment by her breasts, but she's frowning kind of hard, so he lifts his eyes to her face.

“What?”

“You're not a meathead,” she says.

“Well, no, but I look like one.”

“No, you don't, and you're not bulky, either. Don't you like the way you look?”

He shrugs. “It's okay. I mean, I like being tall and strong and _healthy_ , but the serum was like the most intense puberty imaginable packed into three minutes. And as Howard helpfully pointed out at the time, I grew _breasts_.”

She grins. “I like your manboobs.”

He rolls his eyes. “Thanks.”

“But I don't want you to feel bad about yourself,” she adds. “You should not feel bad about yourself, Steve.”

“I don't,” he says, and she purses her lips, looking unconvinced. “Really! I don't, it's just... strange to have a different body to the one you grew up with.”

“I can see that, but you've had it for, what, four years? Doesn't it get easier?” Her fingers skitter along his side, and his cheek twitches, but she lets it pass.

“It kinda does, but it's hard to hold onto.”

She frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Well, like, I have kinda a high libido...”

“Really?” she murmurs.

He smiles. “Yeah. Well, I didn't have that before, that was the serum, and I had the... impulses under control. Mostly. It was difficult at first, because I constantly wanted to...” He pulls a face, not sure that he wants to finish that sentence. Darcy grins.

“You wanted to jerk off. Really does sound like puberty.”

“Yeah. But I had it under control, until you.”

“Me?” she says, and widens her eyes comically. “What did _I_ do?”

“You... took my virginity. Masturbation is one thing, but having sex is something else entirely. I still find it hard to control the way my body reacts, sometimes.”

She twists her mouth. “You should have told me.”

“I didn't say it was a _bad_ thing, just hard to get a handle on, sometimes.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Is this hard to get a handle on?” she asks, running her fingers quickly across his pelvis, getting one surprised grunt out of him before he clamps his mouth shut.

“N-no,” he stutters, tensing his muscles.

“Nothin', huh?” she says, sliding over to straddle him, running her fingers all over his abs.

He bites his lips hard and shakes his head. She doubles down, tickling him all over, from side to side, up his chest and down his stomach, until he's squirming and trying desperately not to giggle. Darcy's an absolute devil, though, and leans back to hit the soles of his feet.

“Ah!” he yelps, and starts giggling. It's such a stupid, undignified sound, to the apparent delight of Darcy, who just gets worse, until he's breathless from laughing. “Okay, okay! I surrender!” he gasps.

“What do you surrender?” she asks, attacking his feet again.

“Anything!” he says, his foot twitching in her grasp. 

She keeps going for a couple more seconds, but thankfully does stop. She turns back to him and grins. “You are so cute when you laugh like that.”

“Like an idiot?”

“My idiot,” she says fondly, and settles down against his side. “So, I think tomorrow morning I'm going to call Pepper and ask her if she has any ideas on how to go about having a secret wedding. What do you think?”

“Um,” he says momentarily struck dumb by the knot in his stomach.

“Makes it seem more real, huh? We can slow our roll, if you want.”

He shakes his head. “I don't wanna do that.”

“Well, okay then,” she says, smiling, and runs her fingers through his hair. His eyelids flutter shut, and he shifts around to curl in closer to her, enjoying her gentle petting. The anxious feeling in his gut quickly dispels, and he feels himself drifting to sleep against her. She kisses him on the forehead and wishes him good dreams.

-

He does have good dreams, and feels a hell of a lot more relaxed the next morning than he has any right to be, given the circumstances. He makes chocolate and banana pancakes at the request of Darcy, and they use up the last of the maple syrup on them, eating in front of Saturday morning cartoons. He used to be a stickler for sitting at the table, because no matter where they were living, he and his mom always ate at the table, with no other distractions, but he guesses that he's getting lazy now. Darcy makes him watch cartoons with her as often as she can; his favourite is _The Jetsons_ , because _that's_ what the future's meant to be like.

“Okay,” Darcy says after _The Flintstones_ ends, and Steve is trying to subtly lick dried syrup off his fingers. “Time to get dressed.”

He checks the clock. “It's only eleven thirty,” he says.

“Lazy. Jane's coming over.”

“Jane's coming over?”

“Oh, I didn't tell you? Yeah, she called me yesterday and asked if she needed to mess you up.”

He laughs, but her expression stays the same. 

“I'm serious, she has some huge unresolved issues about cheating assholes, she would have fucked your shit up. You better be real nice to her today.”

“I'm always nice,” he says, frowning.

“Yeah, but you need to be, like, Captain America levels of chivalrous and charming, not Steve Rogers levels of cute and mildly confused.” She pats him on the knee, and gets up, headed towards the bathroom.

He turns and watches her go. “There's nothing wrong with Steve Rogers,” he calls belatedly. Then he looks down and notices that he's got syrup on his t-shirt. He gets up to join her in the bathroom.

Despite knowing that he hasn't done anything wrong, and that Darcy was _probably_ exaggerating, he's still nervous when the doorbell goes. Jane is like Darcy's proxy family; if anyone's going to pass judgement on him, it's going to be Jane.

She's definitely slightly cooler towards him when Darcy lets her in, smiling and nodding her greeting, very unlike the last time when she was leaning all over him all night. Darcy looks between the two of them, and rolls her eyes. She reaches up and tugs on the front of his shirt, ruining how he'd neatly tucked it in.

“So, me and Steve are getting married in two weeks time, hopefully.”

Jane's eyebrows rocket up her face. “What?”

“You didn't tell her?” Steve asks.

“I'm trying to keep the circle of people who know about the secret wedding small. Plus I'm not convinced that S.H.I.E.L.D. aren't tapping our phones.”

He'd never thought about that.

“But you're... you're both babies!” Jane says.

“I'm almost twenty eight,” he argues indignantly.

“And I'm almost thirty three,” she says, “you're still too young.”

“Really?” He'd always had the vague idea that she was around Darcy's age, even though that doesn't make any sense, with having a PhD and all.

She smiles. “Thank you, Steve. _However_ , you guys haven't even known each other for a year!”

“Thanks, _Mom_ ,” Darcy mutters, leaning back against Steve.

“And what does your mother think about this?” Jane says.

“She said her and Dad wouldn't be paying for the wedding.”

“Hm,” Jane responds. “And how long have you been engaged for?”

“Um...” Darcy counts off her fingers. “A week? Yeah, I proposed to Steve last weekend.”

“ _A week_?” Jane cries, “what do you need to get married for so soon, then?”

“I dunno, we love each other and stuff?” Darcy shrugs. “Look, let's go out and get some lunch, maybe you'll be happier after some food.”

Jane grumbles at that, and Steve turns around and follows Darcy into the bedroom as she fetches her phone. “We're going out?”

“Yes,” she says, and pulls open the closet door. “Red sweater or pink?”

“Red,” he says. “Can't we just lay low for a while?”

“No.” She pulls the sweater over her head and flails with it a bit until he steps forward and tugs it down for her. Her hair billows out like a halo. “Thank you. But we're not laying low, because we have nothing to lay low for and those fuckers aren't going to keep us down.”

“I just don't like us being under so much scrutiny. I don't want people... passing judgement.” He thinks of those comments he read yesterday, all the horrible things people were saying about them, the disgusting things people say about Darcy.

“That's what people do,” Darcy says, “and probably half of those people aren't even complete fucking assholes in real life.”

“Doesn't stop me from wanting to punch them,” he mutters.

“Good,” she says, and takes his arm, “come on, Jane'll come around, she's just overly protective sometimes.”

“Oh, your hair's kinda...” He raises his hand and strands of her hair stretch towards it and stick to his palm. “Staticky.”

“Ugh,” she says, smoothing it down and turning back to the dresser for a hair tie. “Guys have it so easy.”

-

It feels like everyone is looking at him as they head downtown, and he knows that probably half the people aren't really looking at him at all, but that still leaves the other half, who elbow their friends and nod their heads towards him. He shoves his hands in his pockets and tucks his chin down. After a few minutes, his participation in Darcy and Jane's conversation dwindles away and he half listens in silence, keeping his eyes on the ground.

“Steve,” Darcy says, stopping him. She tugs his head down for a long kiss, then pulls his hand out of his pocket and laces their fingers together. “Tell Jane why she's wrong about Disneyland being a good place to have a honeymoon.”

They settle at a burger place, right at the front because it's Saturday afternoon in downtown Brooklyn and everywhere is packed. He dithers over it, feeling exposed, until Darcy forcibly steers him into a seat, takes a menu out of the hand of a hovering waiter, and drops it into Steve's lap.

“So, you're really going to go through with this?” Jane asks, when they've all ordered and got their drinks. She doesn't have to elaborate on what 'this' is.

Darcy shakes her head and scoots her chair as close to Steve's as it'll go. “You make it sound like I'm running away to join the circus or something.”

“Barton grew up in the circus,” Steve says suddenly.

“Really?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

“Huh,” Darcy says, and takes a sip of the milkshake she ordered. “I mean, I think joining the circus would be pretty fucking awesome, but I can see why boring people would disapprove. This, though? There's nothing to disapprove of. Steve is literally the boy that everyone's mother wants them to marry.”

“I'm not saying he isn't,” Jane says, then pauses as the waiter comes over with their food. She waits for him to go before starting to speak again, which is several minutes, because the man just _lingers_. “I'm just saying that with _those pictures_ \--”

“I'm _right here_ , you know,” Steve interrupts. He puts as much humour into his voice as he can, but he doesn't feel especially humorous. People are looking, and people are talking about him, and he's had his intelligence questioned, his strength, fitness to be a soldier, and ability to lead questioned, but he's never had his moral character questioned before. His character was meant to be the one thing that set him apart, that he was a good person, and to have people think otherwise is more painful than he would have thought.

Darcy looks at him and narrows her eyes. “Okay,” she says, and takes his hand. “No more talking about this, we're having a moratorium on weddings and TMZ starting...” She looks at her watch. “Now.”

Jane nods. “Sorry, Steve,” she says.

“It's okay,” he mumbles, and starts picking at his fries.

The meal goes easier after that. Jane talks about her research and how badly it's going, Darcy talks about Fury's visit to the office, and how terrifying he was, and Steve talks about the work he's doing on the apartment and tells the story Mrs Rossi blatantly flirting with him.

“That woman is a total cougar,” Darcy says, and wipes her mouth on her napkin before getting up. “I've gotta pee, I'll be back in a minute.” She leans over and gives him a peck on the cheek, then heads off to the restroom. 

Jane smiles awkwardly at him. “I didn't mean to upset you before, I'm sorry.”

“You didn't upset me,” he says.

She arches an eyebrow. “You're not a hard guy to read, you know.”

He smiles ruefully and slumps down in his seat. “Yeah. I didn't cheat on Darcy.”

“I know you didn't.”

“Okay. And I'm not a baby.”

“Well,” Jane says, and takes a sip of her drink. “I meant it metaphorically.”

“Hm,” he says. “Bruce said I was a kid, too.”

“Dr Banner's in New York?” Jane asks, visibly perking up.

“Um... I don't think I'm supposed to tell you that.”

Jane taps her fingers on the table thoughtfully. “You didn't tell me anything.”

He chuckles, and picks at the burnt remains of Darcy's basket of fries. Silently, Jane leans over and empties her half full basket into it; Steve takes it as a peace offering. A couple of minutes later, Darcy comes back from the restroom, looking slightly dazed, holding her phone in her hand.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Pepper called me while I was urinating,” she says.

“Okay,” he replies, “good?”

She smacks him on the arm and sits back down, leaning in. “I left a message about the _thing_ this morning, and she just called back.” She pauses and gives them both significant looks, then sighs and motions for them to lean in as well. “She said that her and Tony are going to California next week and that we're welcome to use their freaking Barbie Malibu Dreamhouse to get married in.”

“Next week?” he asks, trying to ignore the faint buzz in his ears.

“She said we could fly out there with them on Monday, get married on Tuesday, then they're off to some big conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, so they'll gone after that. I'll have to move my vacation forward, but that won't be hard... It kind of works, you know, my parents can come, and there's never going to be a more secret place unless we get hitched on the helicarrier. What do you think?”

He glances at Jane, then at the table, then back Darcy. He feels a little short of breath. “I think we should pack our bags.”

Her eyes widen. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Okay,” she says, grinning, and leans over to kiss him. She only stops when Jane clears her throat politely. “Ha, sorry, got a little caught up in the moment there. So, hey, wanna be my maid of honour.”

“Well, who else were you going to ask?” Jane says.

“I could have asked Pepper. Now she would be one classy maid of honour.”

Jane sniffs. “I'm just as classy as Pepper.”

“Sure. We're gonna have to get me a thrift store wedding dress tomorrow, you know.”

“I suppose I can put off unlocking the secrets of the universe for a day,” Jane says magnanimously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got to the title name drop! I'm so proud of myself.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At some point, the rate of these chapters is going to slow down, I promise! I'm getting to the end of what I've already written and the next eight days is paper-writing/studying/exam central for me, so although I haven't got much left to write, there'll probably be a delay after chapter nine while I retrieve my scattered brains.

They do their packing that evening – Darcy throws the clothes she wants to bring onto the bed and Steve folds and puts them in the suitcase. She calls her parents, too, and has what to Steve's ear is a very confusing three way conversation.

“They're coming,” she says finally, after arguing about dresses and absent grandparents and cousins.

Sunday morning consists of more lazing around, watching _I Love Lucy_ and making out on the couch. Darcy's hands are underneath his shoulders, tracing patterns, while he buries his fingers in her hair and anchors her against him. He can't quite believe that in two days' time he's going to be her _husband_ ; honestly he can't believe that he's going to be _anyone's_ husband. Darcy professed similar amazement once Jane had left, but he's not sure she totally gets it. She's a beautiful young woman who's always been beautiful. He, on the other hand, only has four years of being good-looking under his belt – and not just that, but four years of being a productive, unburdensome member of society, capable of looking after himself, earning money, and not collapsing in a wheezing mess after running down the stairs too fast. He doesn't think Darcy will ever really be able to understand that, and he's so grateful that she can't.

The doorbell goes close to midday, while Darcy is working on that spot behind his ear.

“Probably reporters,” he mumbles, baring his neck to her more.

“Yeah,” she murmurs, creeping her fingertips up underneath his t-shirt.

The doorbell goes again. “Or Jehovah's Witnesses.”

“Mm hm,” she hums, and pushes herself up to kiss him. The doorbell keeps going, but he ignores it completely, hiking her tank top to her shoulder blades. She spreads her legs across his hips and drops kisses all over his neck and the exposed part of his chest, humming tunelessly. He sweeps his hand up and down her back, trying to commit to memory the way she feels right now; he doesn't want to think in terms of when things are going to end, but it's a hard habit to break out of. Steve's used to endings.

His phone rings, vibrating unsteadily across the coffee table. He sighs and slings an arm around Darcy's waist before rolling to one side to reach it. 

“It's Tony,” he says, frowning, and answers it while Darcy's still admiring his chest. “Hello?”

“Hey, you in there? It's cold out here, man.”

“What?” He twists his head to look at the intercom. “That's you at the door?”

“ _Yes_ , and despite the fact that I'm well past my child-rearing days, I'd still prefer to not _freeze my balls off_ in _Brooklyn_.”

“Nothing wrong with Brooklyn,” Steve says as Darcy sits up and scoots back a little to give him room. “But I'll let you in anyway.”

“I swear, that dude has some kind of bad timing app on his phone,” Darcy says, tugging her tank top back down.

“Probably,” Steve says, and buzzes Tony in. He listens for the outer door being opened, then opens his door and sticks his head out. “Hey, what do you... Bruce?”

Bruce follows across the hallway after Tony and shrugs apologetically. “I tried to stop him.”

“Tried to stop him what?” he asks, shuffling to one side when Tony brushes past him into the apartment.

“It's midday and you're not even dressed? Tisk tisk, Captain,” Tony says, eyeing Steve's t-shirt and sweatpants, then Darcy's fuzzy panda pyjama bottoms. “Those are adorable.”

“Thanks. Good morning, Dr Banner, we haven't been formally introduced.”

“No...” Bruce says uncertainly.

“I was a student at Culver.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No worries, man, it was before my time.”

“This place is way nicer than last time I saw it,” Tony comments, turning in a circle. “You have stuff now!”

“I have stuff now,” Steve confirms. “What do you want?”

“What do you think? _Obviously_ this is your sad three man bachelor party. It'll be like _The Hangover_!”

“Please don't leave him on a roof somewhere,” Darcy says.

Tony turns to her. “I won't, promise.”

Steve shakes his head. “No.”

“I _said_ you wouldn't want to,” Bruce tells him solemnly.

“Oh, stop sucking up to the leader. Natasha's his favourite and there's nothing you or I can do about that.”

Bruce nods tiredly, as if he's been dealing with this all morning – which he probably has.

“Why don't we leave it up to the wife?” Tony turns back to Darcy with a flourish. “Darcy?”

“I mean, it's a... normal life experience,” she says, “maybe you should go.”

Steve pulls a face at her and she shrugs apologetically. “Sorry.”

With three sets of eyes on him, the peer pressure seems too much. “Okay,” he says, “but no funny business.”

Tony puts his hands up. “There'll be a ten foot unfunny zone around us. Anyway, I asked Bruce to create booze that would get you drunk, and he refused, so how much fun can we really have? 'Cause somehow I bet you're a _hilarious_ drunk.”

Steve scratches the back of his head dejectedly. “I'll get dressed.”

-

Happy drives them to a club; when they get there Steve asks him if he wants to join them, but he declines, saying that there's a film on at a local picture house that he's been wanting to see for weeks. Honestly, he looks kind of relieved to be getting away from Tony. Steve sympathises. 

They're shown in via the back and led to a private room that has red padded walls, no windows, and very comfortable seating.

“This is a strip club,” Steve says.

“They prefer 'adult entertainment venue',” Tony says, “And how would you even know?” He waves over a sparsely dressed waitress and whispers something in her ear before handing her what looks like a hundred dollar bill.

“I've been to grindhouses before, I did live in New York.” Tony frowns and Steve adds, “You know, burlesque?”

“Huh. And you were doing what in these places, Steven?”

“My friend made me go with him. He liked to do that; he also made me go to several European brothels in the war.”

Tony sits back and glances at Bruce. “Well, my mind is sufficiently blown, what about yours?”

Bruce looks like he's getting pretty comfortable on the plush seating. “I don't know, it's always the quiet ones you've gotta watch out for.”

“It's not like I _did_ anything at those places,” Steve insists. “I only went to the...” The waitress comes back with three drinks balanced on a tray, and Steve lowers his voice automatically. “... _brothels_ to make sure that he came back to the unit the next day.”

“Sure,” Tony says, accepting the drinks. “Here, this is yours.”

Steve takes the cold glass handed to him – its liquid is red at the bottom and bright blue in the middle, with a scoop of ice cream topping it off, the rim frosted with salt, and all manner of fruit wedges and a little American flag stuck in the top. It looks like it should be on someone's fancy hat. “Really,” he says, looking at it.

“Try it,” Tony says, pushing at the bottom of it so that the rim of it knocks against Steve's lip painfully. “Sorry.”

Tony and Bruce's drinks are red and gold, and plain green respectively. “It's, it's green,” Bruce mutters, and both Tony and Steve laugh.

Tony raises an eyebrow at Steve. “Hm. Drink up.”

Steve takes a sip, and wrinkles his nose: it's _very_ sweet. He takes another sip. “Not bad, what's in it?”

“Tequila, grenadine, lemonade, food colouring, vanilla ice cream, and lots and lots of sugar. They actually warn you not to drink it if you're diabetic. It's the Captain America special.”

Steve eyes the thing in his hand. Objectively, it's absolutely horrible. “They actually sell this on a regular basis?”

“It's one of their best sellers, along with the Iron Man. Their mixologist is unparalleled.”

“Is the vanilla a jab at me for being boring?”

Tony looks thoughtful. “I think it's just for the colour, but now that you mention it...”

“Do the others have drinks?” Bruce asks.

“Yep, Widow's is black and red, Hawk's is purple with arrow shaped stirrers, and Thor's is gold and has a little cape attached to it.”

“Why do I feel like you had a hand in these things?” Steve asks.

“Couldn't tell you. Hey, I got you a present.”

“You... did?” He puts his drink down and shares a nervous look with Bruce.

“Yup,” Tony says, pulling what's clearly an extremely poorly wrapped book out of his bag, and drops it in Steve's lap.

“Well, thanks,” Steve says uncertainly, and rips the paper off one side. He narrows his eyes. “The Kama Sutra?”

“It's a—”

“I know what it is,” Steve interrupts, sliding it out of what's left of the wrapping and flipping it open to the first page. Huh, well that looks familiar.

“I just thought you might like to show your girl a good time on your wedding night.”

“Thanks for your concern, but I think we'll do just fine.”

“Oh, _really_?” Tony asks, leaning forward and resting his chin in his hands. “Tell me more.”

Steve puts the book on the table next to his drink. “I don't think people give gifts at bachelor parties, you know.”

Tony shrugs. “Well, I don't know what happens at these things.”

“You've never been to a bachelor party before?” Bruce asks.

“Who do you really think would invite me? There's only one person who has to, and Rhodey's avoided that by selfishly not getting married.”

“Right,” Steve says, and leans back on the couch. The door on the other side of the room opens and in walks a woman in what's almost the spit of the costume the USO girls wore. Steve has a bad feeling about this. 

Her eyes flicker briefly over him, before resting on Tony. She waves and Tony grins.

“Hey, so who's up for a lap dance?”

“Excuse me?” Steve asks, dropping his voice as deep and authoritative as he can.

“It's a rite of passage!” Tony says as the young woman sashays – there is no other word for it – over to them. Tony takes hold of her hand and kisses it. “Cherry Bomb.”

“Mr Stark,” she says, “and I guess this is the Captain?” She holds out her hand. “It's a pleasure.”

“Um, yeah,” he says, taking her hand, “I, uh...”

“It's his first lap dance,” Tony confides. “At least, I assume it is, unless he's even more of a dark horse than I thought.”

Steve clears his throat and lets go of Cherry's hand. “There is literally nothing you could say or do that would compel me have a lap dance,” he tells Tony.

“Is this about Darcy? 'Cause they're very discreet here, and Bruce is great at keeping secrets. And I'll try my best, too.”

“I'm not worried about her finding out, because nothing's gonna happen. I'm just not interested in anything like that with other women.” It's not only that, though. He _knows_ that despite being mentally and emotionally disinterested, his body will, without a doubt, become extremely aroused by that sort of contact, and that's both hideously embarrassing and absolutely not fair on Cherry. “I'm sorry,” he says to her, “I hope I haven't offended you.”

“Oh, you haven't,” she says, “I like a man with the courage of his convictions.”

Tony throws up his hands. “Jesus, you're losing this lovely lady money, and she still likes you. That's fucking ridiculous.”

Cherry smiles the type of indulgent smile that Steve sees a lot on people who, for some reason or other, like Tony.

“There's nothing stopping _you_ from having a lap dance,” Steve says, glancing at Cherry for a second before turning to Tony.

“Whoa,” Tony says, scooting back a little. “Whoa, no, the only genitals allowed within close proximity of my genitals are Pepper's, okay? Okay.”

Steve grimaces. “Thanks for that picture.”

“Free of charge,” Tony says. “Well, I'm sorry you got dressed up for nothing, Cherry--”

“I'll have a lap dance,” Bruce says. He seems unconcerned under their surprised gazes. “I mean, if there's one going.”

“Bruce!” Tony says with a bark of laughter. “You sly dog.”

Bruce shrugs. “I think I'm drunk. Guess I'm just as much of a lightweight as ever.” 

Steve thinks the half a glass of tequila cocktail that Bruce has drunk in under ten minutes probably helped with that, too.

“I like older men,” Cherry says, and steps around Tony's feet to reach Bruce. She sits down carefully in his lap. “Would you like the music changed?”

“I don't mind,” he says. “Where do I put my hands?”

“Right here,” she says, taking his hands and placing them on her outer thighs. “I guess I should really be wearing ripped shorts and nothing else,” she asks, moving slowly against him.

“Well, this is good too,” Bruce says.

Steve clears his throat and looks away, while they continue their very calm, very professional sounding conversation.

Tony cackles. “This is even better than I could have hoped!”

Steve can feel a blush creep up his neck. “I'm sure it is.”

“You're a scientist, right?” Cherry asks Bruce. 

“Yeah, a nuclear physicist.”

“I thought about majoring in physics when I was at college, but I decided that sociology was more my speed.”

“Huh. Which college did you go to?”

“Oh my God,” Tony says, leaning his face against Steve's arm, shoulders shaking with laughter. “This is the best thing _ever_.”

Steve puts his hand over his mouth and smiles. It is pretty damn funny, the way they're maintaining a casual conversation in the midst of a lap dance. The tone of Bruce's voice hasn't even changed. Tony laughs until his eyes water, which is probably at least somewhat to do with the tequila. When Cherry's finished, she smooths down her skirt, and Bruce thanks her quietly. Steve can't help but laugh.

“What?” Bruce asks, blinking owlishly at them.

“Gotta watch out for the quiet ones,” Steve says.

“If you're interested, the show's about to start,” Cherry says before she disappears out the door.

“Oh!” Tony grabs the back of Steve's shirt to pull him up. He tries to, at least; when Steve doesn't want to move, nothing's going to make him. “Jesus,” Tony mutters, giving him another fruitless tug, “You're, like, solid muscle.”

Steve raises his eyebrows. “What's 'the show'?”

“It's just a, you know...” Tony squints and takes another sip of his drink before continuing. “It's _burlesque_ , how's that?”

“And exactly how uncomfortable is it going to make me feel?”

Tony shrugs. “You won't see any pubic hair, promise.”

Steve thinks about it. He did enjoy the few shows he got to see when he was younger, and after the USO tours, he definitely appreciates the dedication and athletics that go into them – he would _not_ willingly go back into show business, aside from the superhero show business, which he doesn't have much of a choice in. And he's not, actually, that much of a prude.

“All right,” he says. 

Tony practically does a double take, then leans over and high fives Bruce.

His description of the show is actually pretty accurate. It's the mid-afternoon, so the club is fairly empty, which makes Steve feel a little more relaxed. They have their own dark little corner to themselves, but it's obvious that Tony is known here. Steve can just imagine the headlines: 'Captain America sticking dollar bills in stripper's g-string! Girlfriend distraught!'. He's sure that it would somehow devolve into a story about him getting blown in an alleyway. 

The place really is more of an old-fashioned cabaret, and a classy one, no men hollering at the girls to take their bras off, like what used to happen in the dive Bucky took him to a couple of times.

Tony looks at him sceptically when he relates the story.

“What?” he says.

Tony shrugs, working on his third red and gold tequila; at this rate, Steve's pretty sure he's going to be carrying Tony back to the car. “Next you'll be telling me that you had a girl at every port.”

“No, course not, I'm not a womaniser.”

“Good, your virtue's still intact. That's good.” Tony nods sharply, seemingly pleased. Bruce has sunk down into the equally comfortable couch, and seems fairly disinterested in what's going on around him.

“Well...” Steve says, pausing to clap as the performers' set ends. “I wouldn't say that, exactly.”

Tony's eyes go round. “Are you telling me,” he says, in the loudest whisper Steve's ever heard, “that you aren't a virgin?”

That draws a few glances over at them. Steve turns his face away. “This isn't an appropriate place to have this conversation.” He pauses for a moment before adding, “There are no appropriate places to have this conversation.”

“Pfft, still a virgin,” Tony decides, leaning back.

It shouldn't matter at all what anyone, and especially Tony, thinks, but Steve feels his sometimes troublesome sense of pride itch at the back of his neck. “Actually, I'm not.”

“Oh, really?” Tony says. For some reason, that makes Bruce snicker.

“Yes, and that's all I'm going say about it.”

“You're no fun.”

He shrugs and starts twiddling the flag between his fingers. “Darcy thinks I'm plenty fun.”

“Well, I'd hope so,” Tony says. “So, how're you feeling about this whole thing? Feet cold yet?”

“Of course not. I'm just...” He trails off, wondering if he should say any more. If Tony was sober, he'd use any confessions as leverage against Steve, but this many tequilas in, Steve doubts he'll even remember that they came here by tomorrow morning. “I'm just kinda amazed that any of this is happening. I didn't think even being in a relationship was ever gonna be on the cards for me.”

Tony nods. “Yeah, I know that feeling.”

“Yeah,” Bruce echoes. “I thought... I nearly proposed to someone once. Even got a ring. Pawned it in South Dakota for a couple hundred dollars.” He doesn't sound particularly sad, just matter of fact and a little toneless.

Tony looks at Steve and grimaces. Steve recalls the pictures of Dr Ross that Tony showed him at Christmas. “You doing okay there, Bruce?” he asks.

Bruce looks up at them, a slight frown lining his forehead. “Hm? Oh, yeah, I'm just a miserable drunk, don't worry about it.”

“Man, look at us party animals,” Tony says, “the club can't even handle us right now.”

“Poor Tony,” Bruce says, patting him on the shoulder.

“Hey, I put _minutes_ of thought into this. I shoulda known better than to bring Grandpa and the not-so Jolly Green Giant along.”

“You wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for 'Grandpa',” Steve points out.

“You don't know what I do with my Sundays.”

“Okay, Tony,” he says, biting back a sigh. “But I am enjoying myself, so thank you.”

Tony shrugs. “Sure, whatever.”

Steve shares a tired look with Bruce and settles back in to watch the show. They maintain a stilted  
conversation between drinks and songs, and one extremely accurate rendition of his USO show, except that Captain America is a woman in a short skirt and legs that go on for miles. Tony wolf-whistles. Steve is only saved from further embarrassment by his phone buzzing.

“'s rude to have phones on,” Tony says, slurring a little.

“Sorry,” Steve replies absently, opening the message from Darcy. A picture of her looking irritable in a puffy dress pops up. He grins and scrolls down to the message: 'This kis the woman youre goign to narry – Jane'. A couple of seconds later another message comes in: '*going'. 

“Whatcha looking at?” Tony says, shoving his face inches from Steve's.

“Jane sent me a picture of Darcy in a horrible wedding dress,” he says, and goes back to the picture, turning the phone towards Tony.

“That's bad luck, y'know,” Tony says.

“I don't think she's getting this one. At least, I hope not...”

“I'm just sayin'...” Tony says, waving his hands a little. “Don't want to make the gods angry.”

“I don't think Thor and Loki really care about whether I see Darcy's dress beforehand or not.”

Tony squints at him. “Hey, that's pretty funny. You're not that bad at jokes.”

“High praise,” he says, and looks at his watch. “We should probably be heading out. Darcy said that you're picking us up at eleven and I'm sure there'll be extra packing to do when I get home.”

“It's fucking six o'clock, c'mon!” Tony insists. “We haven't even tied you to a lamppost yet!”

Steve tilts his head. “I would really like to see you try to accomplish that.”

“Pepper said she wanted you home by seven,” Bruce says softly. 

Tony whips his head around and glares at him. “Tattle tale.”

Bruce raises his hands a little. “Sorry,” he says, not sounding it at all.

“Call Happy,” Steve tells Tony, and after much grumbling, he complies. 

It takes a bit of planning, but Steve manages to get both Tony and Bruce out of the club without any major spills. He passes Cherry on the way out, now in jeans and a sweater, and she helps hurry Tony's meandering along.

“I think it's meant to be the other way round, you know,” she says as they get to the car. Happy gets out and relieves him of both of them.

“I'm used to it,” he says.

“Me too.” She holds out her hand. “My name's Charlotte, by the way.”

He takes it. “It was nice to meet you, Charlotte.”

“Nicer for me, probably,” she says. “Your fiancée's a lucky woman.”

“I'm the lucky one.” 

She smiles. “That's why she's lucky.”

-

Darcy isn't home when he gets back, so he clears away her mess, does some more packing, works out a little, and then sits down with his sketchbook. He starts drawing wedding dresses, big puffy ones and slinky floor length ones, imagining what Darcy's going to look like, knowing that his pencil will never be able to capture her completely. He must have drawn fifty sketches of her by now, and none of them are exactly right. He likes drawing the movements of dresses, though, they're so lithe and... swishy.

She gets home just after nine, humming tunelessly and swinging a paper bag back and forth. He turns around and rests his chin on the top of the couch, watching as she dumps all her things on the ground, looks at them for a second, then nods to herself and leaves them there.

“Hellooo,” she says, coming up and giving him a kiss. She smells like cheap wine.

“How drunk are you?” he asks.

“Woo, a lot less than earlier.” She clambers over the back of the couch and tumbles into his lap. “Jane said we had to celebrate, 'specially since you were getting a bachelor party, and I said it had to be fancy, but we couldn't afford fancy so we went to this dive bar and drank gross wine. Four guys tried to pick me up.” She tucks her thumb against her palm and holds out her fingers. “Four. I still got game.”

He twists her hair around his fingers and smiles. “Not too much, I hope.”

“Psh, you know you're the only guy for me,” she says, waving her hand dismissively. He can't help but smile wider. She reaches up and cups his cheek. “Aw, look at that little face.”

He turns his head and kisses her palm before asking, “So, did you have a good time? Did you get a dress?”

“Yes and yes, d'you want to see it?” She starts pulling herself up, and he rests his hand on her back to help her.

“No, it's okay.”

“Don't tell me you're superstitious,” she says, twisting around to look at him.

“No, I'm...” He thinks about Tony's drunken warning – he doesn't really believe it, but he guesses it can't hurt. “I'm not, really. Leave it as a surprise?”

She shrugs and flops back down into his lap. “All right. I think you're gonna like it, though.”

“Of course I am, you're wearing it.”

She laughs. “Aw, such a charmer. Did you have a good time?” She gives him a sniff. “You smell like tequila.”

“Yeah, Tony took us to this club that served Avenger-themed cocktails.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and pouts. “No fair, man! You got fancy cocktails and can't even fully appreciate them, and I got nasty wine? Tony should have taken me instead.”

“And then I could have gone out and bought a dress with Jane?” he asks.

“You've got great legs,” she says seriously.

“Tony tried to buy me a lap dance, too,” he says. He's not really nervous about telling Darcy, he's pretty sure that things like that don't phase her, but he holds his breath, nonetheless.

“Did you take it?”

“No, of course not!”

“Well, that was rude, those ladies work hard, you know.”

“Bruce did instead,” he adds.

She grins. “Sly dog.”

“That's what Tony said.”

“Great minds,” she says. “You know, I'd give you a lap dance, but I'm too comfy here.”

He threads his fingers through her hair again and smiles. “That's okay, we've got plenty of time.”

“Yes, we do,” she agrees, shifting to get her shoulders aligned with his leg. “Anything good on TV?”


	7. Chapter 7

Happy picks them up the next day in a surprisingly nondescript car – Steve had been imagining a limo pulling up outside, which would have turned more than a few heads. Happy says it's his own car and that he strongly advised Tony against any of his wild flights of fancy. Jane's already in the car, looking a little worse for wear.

“You should get a Steve,” Darcy says happily, “he's great for a hangover.”

“Be nice,” he says, getting in after her and closing the door behind him.

“Don't expect miracles, Steve,” Jane says sniffily.

Tony's plane is even plusher than S.H.I.E.L.D.'s and 'much more energy efficient, too', Tony says proudly as he shows them around the 'first class lounge'. It's more like it's own self-contained flying apartment.

“There are beds through there,” he says with a wink, pointing at a door at the other end of the cabin. Steve can't help but notice that there's also Bruce tucked away in the corner, working on a laptop. Tony's already wandering off to talk to Pepper.

“Hey,” he says, frowning.

Bruce jabs at his glasses, shoving them up the bridge of his nose. “Hello.”

“How's the hangover?”

“Not bad. Pepper has some amazing painkillers.”

Steve nods. “That's good...”

“Yeah.” Bruce taps on the edge of his laptop for a second before raising his eyebrows. “I'm not trying to crash your wedding, by the way. Tony got it into his head that if he left me unattended, I'd run away again. He's probably not wrong.”

“I don't mind if you crash my wedding. I don't think Darcy'll mind either...” He looks back at where Darcy and Jane are excitably being shown all the toys by Tony, right at the opposite end of the cabin, which is quite a ways away. “It's Tony and Pepper's place, anyway, I can't really tell them who they can and can't invite.”

“It's still a bit weird,” Bruce says, “I'll keep out of the way.”

“You don't have to do that,” Steve says, but it occurs to him that maybe Bruce _wants_ to stay out of the way. Steve certainly understands that feeling.

Bruce doesn't get his wish for long, though, because when Jane realises he's there she zeroes in on him. That he doesn't seem to mind too much, though.

Tony offers everyone a round of drinks once the plane has taken off, but quickly lapses into silence as he taps away at his computer. Jane and Bruce are doing something sciency in the corner, and Pepper is having multiple conversations that it takes Steve a moment to realise are _not_ with herself, but on a very discreet headset. 

It's not long before he's starting to get very, very bored, even with his sketchbook and Darcy by his side playing _Angry Birds_. It feels like he shouldn't raise his voice loud enough to have a conversation with her, and if he did, he'd have an audience of four other people to contend with, anyway. He starts scribbling angry birds along the bottom of the page, one eye on her game.

“Ugh,” she mutters as she fails the level and quits the game. “I hate that level, I can never get past it.”

He can't play the game at all, his fingers are just way too big to work the touchscreen. Not that he's especially keen to, it seems pretty dull and, conversely, extremely frustrating. The characters are cute, though.

Darcy leans over and slides her hand up the back of his t-shirt. “I really want to have sex with you in the bathroom right now,” she whispers.

He glances at the bathroom door, bites his lip, then looks back at her. “No.”

“You had to think about that,” she comments.

“Yeah... Tony'd never let me hear the end of it, though.”

“I guess,” she says. “It's just so boring. I thought riding with Tony would be fun and sexy. They're like... old people.”

“Yeah,” he says, and checks his watch. They've got just under five hours before they land in LA. 

Darcy taps his sketchbook, smiling at the progression of increasingly angry birds along the bottom of the page. “I've never actually watched you draw something. Show me how to draw? I mean, try to, 'cause my skills topped out at the vaguely anime scribblings of a nerdy thirteen year old.”

He drums his pencil against the page. “Sure, okay. What d'you want me to draw?”

Darcy looks around the cabin. “How about the happy couple over there?” she says quietly, nodding at Tony and Pepper, who are sitting side by side with their hips and elbows touching, but completely ignoring each other in favour of their various gadgets.

He grins and starts roughing out the shapes of their bodies, the curved, hunched over line of Tony's back and the long sweep of Pepper's neck. It only takes a couple of minutes for the rough sketches to coalesce into being recognisably Tony and Pepper. Well, Tony, anyway; it's not hard to do, what with that goatee.

“So, how did you learn how to do this stuff?” Darcy asks. “Like, did you have lessons?”

He puts his arm around her and she snuggles against her side. “Not really. I used to read pulps, against Ma's wishes, and there were lots of illustrations in those that I tried to copy. I mean, my drawings didn't look anything like the pulps, but when you're a poor, friendless six year old, you gotta pass the time somehow.”

Darcy frowns slightly, and rubs his back.

“I probably would have lost interest after a while, but Ma loved all the stupid drawings I did for her, and was always encouraging me to draw something new. She said I was gonna be the next Da Vinci.” He looks down at the cartoon and laughs. “She had high expectations.”

“You could be Da Vinci,” Darcy says. “Less facial hair, though.”

“Lot less facial hair,” he agrees, as he gives Pepper thicker hair. “I had lessons in elementary school, but my high school didn't offer them. I tried my best with woodwork, but I had trouble working the machines. I did take evening classes a little while after I graduated, but then we went to war and they cancelled the classes because they didn't have any students any more. Except me.”

“So, self-taught, then?” Darcy concludes.

He nods, and gives Pepper a faint scowl as she looks at her phone. “Basically.”

“Wow,” she says, “that's incredible.”

“It's not, really, lots of people can draw.”

“Not like you,” she says. She tugs on his t-shirt. “Don't argue with me.”

He smiles. “Okay.”

“Did you think about doing it as a job?” she asks.

“I sorta tried? I got some illustration work from time to time, mostly for small businesses. What I really wanted to do was illustrate pulps or draw comics, and that was just really not a respectable job back then, plus it only paid _if_ you were popular. It was a huge gamble and I had constant medical bills to pay. Selling newspapers seemed the safer bet.” He adds Tony's shadow cast over his laptop and the floor in front, and frowns. “I guess... sometimes I wish I'd tried harder? I wish I hadn't been too scared to take the plunge.”

“Hey,” Darcy says, and leans up to kiss him. He lets his eyes slide shut, relaxing his pencil, and kisses her back. She runs her fingers through the short hair on the back of his neck, and tilts his head down. “You could totally still do that. You could do it under a pseudonym. How about... Roger Stevens? Roger Stevens sounds like an awesome artist, I'm buying his comic already.”

He laughs. “But Roger's a terrible writer, who's gonna write the comic?”

“Why, his plucky sidekick, Darceline Lew... insky, of course.”

He nods. “Okay, so what's the comic about?”

Darcy chews on her lip for a moment. “The adventures of Antonio... Star and... Salt Shaker.”

“Salt Shaker?” he repeats, laughing.

“Yeah. Together they run a multi-million dollar facial hair grooming company. And by night Antonio is Aluminium Man.”

“Aluminium?”

“He wraps himself in foil to ward off the alien mind-reading rays.”

Steve bites his lips and clears his throat to keep from laughing. “And... do they have any friends?” he asks in a strained voice.

“In fact, they do,” she says breezily. “There's Lieutenant Canada, the Norse god Thorn – he's a menace to gardeners everywhere, the much feared House Spider, the Hug – he kills people with his crushing hugs, and, of course, Pigeonface.”

Steve snorts with laughter really loudly, drawing curious glances, and covers his mouth with his hand. Darcy grins in satisfaction.

“Hey,” Tony calls, lifting his head from his laptop for the first time in an hour. “What are you two giggling about over there.”

“Nothing,” Steve says, his voice going a little high. He clears his throat. “Nothing.”

Tony squints at them, and gets up. “What're you doing?” he asks.

“I'm just... drawing.”

“Drawing?” Tony raises his eyebrow. “You any good?”

Steve closes the book. “I'm okay.”

“What were you drawing, can I see?”

“I'm not really comfortable with showing people my sketches, sorry.” He actually doesn't mind showing people his drawings that much, unless those people are Tony.

“Legally I own everything on this plane, you know,” Tony says, craning his neck uselessly, since the book is still closed.

Steve tips his head to one side. “I really don't think that's true.”

“He won't stop,” Pepper says blandly, not looking up from her phone.

He glances at Darcy, who shrugs. “You know what I think.”

“Well... okay.” He flips the book back open to the sketch of Tony and Pepper, and hands it over.

Tony frowns for a moment, before raising his eyebrows. “Wow, okay. This is really good.” He looks over his shoulder at Pepper. “Pep, this is really good, look.” He backs up and holds the book out to her.

“That is really good, I think you've captured us perfectly, Captain.”

“And that's high praise, Stevie,” Tony says, “Pep's really into art and stuff.”

Now everyone, including Bruce and Jane, formerly hunched over in the corner, is looking at him. He lifts his chin. “Thanks.”

“You shouldn't hide your light under a bushel,” Tony says, and starts idly flicking through the pages.

“I'll keep that in mind. Can I have that back now?”

“Mm,” Tony hums. “I think every second picture in here is of Darcy.”

“Yeah,” he says, and Darcy tightens her arm around his back.

“I'm going to say it again,” Tony says, “you two are adorable.”

-

They get to Malibu in just about one piece. Pepper has yet more work to do, and Tony excitably takes Jane and Bruce down into the basement to see his workshop, leaving Steve and Darcy at a loose end. 

“There's a den back there, lots of games and movies and shit,” Tony says as he retreats, waving his arm vaguely in the opposite direction. “Feel free to whatever.”

It's not a den, it's practically its own separate apartment, complete with a bar and an astonishingly large television screen.

“I thought he said there were movies and stuff in here,” Darcy says, turning in a circle. “I don't see anything. I mean, anything.” She indicates to the seemingly endless white walls and the one wrap around couch.

“If I may,” Jarvis says, and then the vast TV switches on. “Would you like movies, TV, music, or video games?”

“Oh, huh, cool. How about video games?”

“Which platform would you like, Miss Lewis?” 

An incredibly long list appears on the screen; Steve's heard of maybe five of them.

“I think we're going to go with the Wii,” she says.

“And the game?” Jarvis asks. Another, even longer, list scrolls down the screen. “I have ordered the list by popularity.”

“Hey, I recognise that one,” Steve says, pointing at the screen, “what about Mario Kart?”

Darcy looks almost affronted. “No, that is the relationship killer. We're one day away from getting married, let's not tempt fate.”

He frowns at the back of her head as she keeps scanning the list. “Oh!” she says after a minute, “Dance Dance Revolution! I was awesome at that when I was fourteen, let's play that one.”

“A good choice,” Jarvis says, “Mr Stark once broke his ankle playing it.” 

There's a hiss and a drawer underneath the screen opens straight from the wall. Darcy pulls out two mats and spreads them out on the floor in front of the screen.

“So, what do I do?” he asks.

“You follow the arrows on the screen and press the corresponding arrows on the mat. I'll give you a demo. Jarvis, let's have a Bad Romance.”

“My pleasure,” Jarvis replies.

He watches her feet as she goes through the steps; it looks pretty straight-forward, but there's definitely skill involved. “You are really good at that,” he says.

“Yeah, I used to date this guy when I was fourteen – I say 'date' but we were fourteen, so it was like some hand-holding and closed mouth kissing. And to be honest I mostly dated him because of his sweet Xbox. So, we spent a lot of time at his mom's house playing on it with his buddies, which they loved because they didn't have any boob-having friends. In the end he broke up with me because he couldn't deal with how thoroughly I owned him at all his games.”

Steve laughs; he swears she has a story for everything and all her boyfriend anecdotes make him feel kind of good about himself, because they all seem to have been uniformly lacking in brains, manners, and sense. It makes him feel very intelligent and well-adjusted.

“All right, come on, Steve, prepare to be embarrassed.”

Steve steps on the mat and Jarvis obligingly restarts the game for them. It takes Steve a minute to get the hang of it, but it comes pretty easily to him. Following directions and quick reflexes are definitely in his wheelhouse.

“What time are your parents getting here?” he asks. He hasn't really asked any questions about how everything is actually going to play out; he's been thinking so much about the end result, he hasn't really considered how they're going to get there.

“Midday,”she says, not taking her eyes off the screen.

“How're they getting here?”

She frowns as she misses one of the steps. He hits it while half looking at her. “Tony's picking them up,” she says slowly.

“Tony, like Tony himself?” he asks.

“I guess so...” she murmurs, glaring at the screen. “Jarvis, let's crank this up to super hard.”

“Yes, Miss Lewis,” Jarvis says.

The arrows come even faster, but it only take him a second to adjust to it, even though he feels a little silly. Darcy looks _very_ determined.

“What about the, uh, the priest?” He doesn't even know who's marrying them, he realises.

“Justice of the peace,” she says shortly, “shush.”

He grins. “But what about--”

“Shush!” Darcy snaps.

He grins even more and turns his full attention back to the screen. His feet move without any input from him – they did these kinds of tests on him before and after the serum, to check his reaction times, his ability to process information, but it was gruelling before the serum and tedious and never-ending afterwards. And it definitely wasn't set to the greatest hits of the 1990s.

“Are you serious?” Darcy shouts at the screen as it tells her 'boo', while his is a constant stream of 'perfect'. “You're cheating, you're totally cheating,” she accuses him.

“I'm not! I'm just built for this stuff!”

Darcy turns her head to glare at him, and misses another step.

“Really!” he says, “Gimme a math test or something, and I'll fail it, no doubt.”

“Oh, shut up,” she mutters.

He chews on the inside of his mouth for a second, then reaches over and gives her a light shove. “Now I'm cheating.”

“Oh!” she shrieks, and smacks his arm. “Asshole!”

It takes him a second to reply through his laughter. “I'm sorry.”

“No, you're not!” she cries, and steps off the mat to smack him again, “you're an asshole!”

He holds his hands up as her very soft punches rain down on his arms. “You almost got there,” he says.

She screws her face up and grabs handfuls of his t-shirt. “It's not fair, my boobs weren't this big back then, they bounce around too much now.”

He looks down at her t-shirt – it does seem like her bra's been a little... jostled – and raises his eyebrows. Darcy dramatically covers her chest with one arm.

“You have a one track mind, Captain,” she says, one hand still balled up in his t-shirt.

He smiles. “I love you so much, Darcy.” Her expression softens and he ducks his head. “I just thought I'd let you know.”

“Yeah,” she says. She puts her hand on the back of his neck and massages there for a moment. “Jarvis, where's our room?”

“I will be glad to give you directions,” Jarvis says mildly.

-

It's a little embarrassing, later, when they're summoned into the main living area for pizza and beer. Darcy's hair is all over the place, for want of the hairbrush she thought she packed, but didn't, and he has a persistent cowlick and a pink blush colouring his cheeks.

“You kids having fun?” Tony asks from his spot curled up lengthwise on the couch. Steve's immediate thought is that he's going to get a hell of a stomach ache sitting like that while eating.

“Lots,” Darcy says, and guides Steve by the hand to an empty space on the couch. “Hey, look they got your favourite, pizza with everything.”

“I'm sending you the cleaning bill,” Tony says before taking a swig of his beer.

Steve rolls his eyes, and considers the best way to eat a pizza which really does seem to be loaded down with every topping imaginable. Darcy wrinkles her nose at the mushrooms on hers and starts methodically picking them off, placing them on his.

“Fungus,” she mutters. “People are crazy, that shit is poisonous.”

Steve frowns at the piles of mushrooms on his pizza. “Then why are you giving them to me?”

“You'll live,” she says, and reaches up to smooth his hair down. It springs back up.

“So, are you two going to be spending the night together?” Tony asks.

Steve looks up from his now apparently poisonous pizza. “Huh?”

“You know, it's back luck to see the bride the day before the wedding. So I guess you're already fucked, actually.”

“Thanks?”

“It's just an observation.”

Pepper nudges him with her elbow. “Don't observe.”

“Yes, dear,” he murmurs.

“I feel like we're the odd ones out,” Bruce says to Jane.

-

The guest bedroom they're staying in is incredible; it's better than any hotel room he's ever been in, and the bed's bigger than any he's ever seen. It's more just a large padded section of the floor.

Darcy splays her arms and legs out like a starfish and sighs. “This is my spiritual home,” she decides.

“Oh yeah?” he says, sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling off his socks. “I thought Forever 21 was. And Five Guys. And donuts.”

“I spiritually moved house,” she says, and hooks her fingers through the belt loop of his khakis.

He laughs and tugs his t-shirt over his head.

“ _That's_ what I like to see,” she says, and runs her fingers down his spine, dipping underneath his boxers. 

He shivers. He needs to get up to take his pants off, but he stays sitting, enjoying Darcy's light fingers on his back.

“Darce?” he asks after a couple of minutes. “D'you think Tony was right?”

“No,” she says, then pauses. “About what?”

“About... it being bad luck to see each other the day before the wedding?”

“What? No. Steve...” The bed bounces a little; he looks over his shoulder as she sits up and scoots over to him. “You've let Tony get into your head.”

“No, I haven't.”

“You have,” she says. She knocks a knuckle gently against the side of his head, then cups her hands over his ear. “Get out of there, Tony,” she whispers.

He ducks away, laughing. “Okay, you've made your point.”

“I hope so. Now take your pants off and get into bed.”

It's disconcerting, trying to sleep in a bed so large; he feels a little stranded in the middle of it, watching Darcy's back. Her hair's spread out all over her shoulders and the pillow, like dark waves on the white linen. They've been in bed for a couple of hours, and it's the most comfortable mattress he's ever lain on, but he can't settle. His heart is fluttering in his chest, like the palpitations he used to get, but he's pretty sure he's not going to die from this. The more he thinks about it, the more his heart pounds, and the more his hearts pounds, the more he heats up and can't settle. It's a vicious cycle.

Darcy shifts around and turns over onto her back. “Hey.”

“Hey, I thought you were asleep.”

“I drifted off for a while, but...”

“Yeah,” he says. “I didn't even get that far.”

“Mm, okay, come on.” She circles his wrist with her hand and gives it a tug.

He shifts in closer and drops his head to her chest, tucking one arm behind the pillow and curling the other around her waist. Her heart is beating just as fast as his. It's comforting, in a way.

“Better?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he murmurs.

“Good,” she says, and runs her fingers through his hair. It's almost embarrassing how much it calms him down, his eyelids are already drooping. “It's okay to be nervous,” she says quietly, tracing aimless patterns in his hair.

“Think 'm still in shock,” he mumbles.

“Of course you are, you're marrying me,” she says.

He chuckles against her chest. “Ain't that the truth.”

Her fingers trail down to his neck, then back up again. “Gonna fall asleep right now if you keep doin' that,” he murmurs.

“That's the _point_ , dumbass,” she says lightly, ruffling his hair, then goes back to massaging his scalp.

And that's the last thing he remembers before he gives up and falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost there guys, the wedding's coming up in the next chapter!


	8. Chapter 8

The morning begins with a hammering at their door. Steve sits up, ramrod straight, before he's even fully awake. Darcy groans and rolls over onto her stomach.

“You're getting married in five hours!” Jane yells through the door.

Darcy mumbles something into the pillow and flails her arm in Steve's direction, smacking him in the chest.

“Okay, thanks, Jane,” he calls back.

“Come eat, Tony made breakfast, he's a really good cook,” she shouts in reply.

“Okay, thank you,” he calls again. Thankfully Jane doesn't reply a second time. He looks down at Darcy and nudges her in the side. “We're getting married in five hours.”

She rolls onto her side and pushes her tangled hair from her face. “Hell yeah, we are,” she says, and wraps an arm around his waist, pulling him back down beside her. He stretches his arms over his head, arching his back a little, and Darcy hums approvingly, squeezing his bicep.

“We should probably go down and get some breakfast,” he says.

“Probably,” she agrees and crawls over to sprawl across his chest. “But you're so warm and soft. Like one of those microwaveable teddy bears.”

“A teddy bear?” he repeats. “Well, that makes me feel very manly.”

“You practically _ooze_ masculinity,” she says, “you can take the hit.”

He screws up his face. “Ooze is a horrible word.”

“Oh, your delicate sensibilities,” she mutters.

“Delicater than yours,” he says, then frowns. “Delicater?” he repeats to himself. “I think I'm getting stupider.”

She laughs and sits up, straddling his waist. “You know, I read once that having sex increases brain cell growth.”

He slides his hands up to her breasts. “Huh.”

They make it down to the kitchen forty minutes later. It smells pretty great in there, and everyone save Pepper is lounging around on various seats and plush couches.

“Your waffles are cold,” Tony announces from behind a laptop and a mouthful of food. There are two plates on the kitchen island that are stacked high with waffles. Steve glances at Darcy.

“That's okay,” he says, “thanks for making breakfast.”

Tony makes a dismissive sound and continues tapping at his computer. Bruce is hunched over a mug of something near him, clearly not a morning person, and Jane looks suspiciously bright-eyed.

“Are you drunk?” Darcy asks, dragging one of the plates towards herself. She leans against the counter and tries a bit from the corner. “Damn, that's good.”

Jane grins. “Nope, I just didn't go to bed last night.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Darcy says, and motions at Steve to take the other plate. “That is so much worse.”

Tony laughs. “It was a sobering and painful reminder of how much older than her we are, huh, Bruce?”

“Mmph,” Bruce says into his mug.

Steve tries the waffles; they _are_ good. “So, where's Pepper?”

“Video conference. Don't worry, she'll be done by the time the show starts.” He rubs at his beard. “Actually... no, I can't promise that, but she'll be very sorry if she isn't.” 

“You gonna go pick up my parents soon?” Darcy asks

Suddenly all crystallises in Steve's mind. Darcy's parents. Marriage. Four hours and twenty minutes away. He takes a deep, shaky breath, and bites his lips.

Tony's nodding. “In a couple of hours. Exactly how much do these people hate me? Pepper intimated that I shouldn't make any off colour jokes about Steve's time as a go-go dancer.” His eyes flick to Steve, and he frowns when Steve smiles vaguely.

“It's my mom you've got to watch out for. Dad thinks you're awesome, Mom thinks you're one step down from the devil incarnate.”

Tony nods thoughtfully. “I've worked with worse.”

The conversation veers into idle chat about the morning's news and whatever Jane, Tony, and Bruce were working on last night, which lets Steve lapse into blessed silence, chewing his waffles methodically, trying to quash his anxiety.

“Hey,” Darcy says quietly, while he's chewing his last piece of waffle to a fine paste.

“Hm, yeah,” he mumbles, then huffs a strange sort of laugh.

Darcy raises her eyebrows. “Come on,” she murmurs, and tugs him up from his seat by the waistband of his pants.

“And where are you guys going?” Tony calls after them. “I don't think you've quite grasped the idea of deeply embedded cultural superstitions about weddings!” he shouts as they get out in the hall.

Darcy gets Steve back to their room before she makes him stand still and look at her. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing, I'm...” He shakes his head helplessly.

“You think I don't know when you're having a panic attack?”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, “I just... What if we're rushing into this? What if you...” He can't even bring himself to finish his sentence.

“If I what? Go off you?” She wraps her fingers around his upper arms and smiles. “That's not going to happen. And if one of us somehow suddenly has a total personality transplant, there's always divorce.”

He must look a little alarmed, because she closes her hands around his cheeks and squeezes. “Forget I said that, no one's getting divorced, this is gonna be great and I'm not gonna go off you because I _love_ you and fuck all the haters, okay?”

“You're squeezing my face kinda hard,” he says quietly.

She grins, and uses her hold on him to reach up and kiss him hard on the lips. “We can stop everything today if you want, but I love you and I want to do this. I never thought I would, but I do,” she adds, and he's already shaking his head.

“There's nothing else in the world I want to be doing more right now, Darce.”

Her smile fades from a brilliant grin to something softer. She rubs a thumb over his cheek, then kisses there. “Do you want to go back down?”

“Not really, Tony's making me kind of anxious.”

“Can't imagine why,” she murmurs. “You wanna start getting ready?”

He frowns. “We're not supposed to do that together, are we?”

She pushes up on her tiptoes and runs her fingers through his hair. “Be a rebel, Steve.”

He tries to look as sly as he can. He probably doesn't do a very good job – Bucky used to say that he only had two expressions: sulky and earnest. “I'll see what I can do,” he says, and bites his lip.

“Ugh, don't do the lip thing,” she says, flicking his bottom lip. “You're such a fucking tease sometimes.” She presses a badly aimed kiss to his chin and sets off towards the bathroom.

-

It's easy enough to get ready, he really only has to put on a shirt and a pair of pants, and comb his hair the same as usual. The hardest part is trying to work out how to tie a bowtie.

“It's impossible,” Darcy declares, having spent five minutes trying to do it for him. “It's like some kind of Herculean task. Just go without it.”

He takes the unassuming, strangely shaped piece of material back, and shrugs. “Okay.”

Darcy goes back to the large vanity and sits down, rooting through her battered make-up bag while Steve sits on the edge of the bed and tries not to fidget too much.

“It's kinda bad how no one's come up and offered any help, isn't it?” he asks.

“Our friends suck,” Darcy replies simply, and lifts her eyeliner to her eye.

“Yeah. I thought Jane might, at least...”

“Jane's the worst of all of them. I do nothing but help that woman, and I never get anything in return.” She lowers the eyeliner wand and sighs. “I'm such a martyr.”

“You are,” he says sympathetically.

“At least someone understands,” she says, her damp hair moving slightly across the back of her robe as she shifts around. “You're such a good-- ah, fuck!”

“Darce?” he says, half standing up. “You okay?”

She turns towards him, pressing her fingers to one watering eye. “Fucking stabbed myself with my eyeliner. Jesus, it stings like a bitch.”

He comes over to the table and kneels down in front of her, then wraps his fingers around the hand clamped over her eye. “Can I see?”

She nods, pouting faintly, and he pulls her hand away gently. It doesn't look that bad, just a little red and watery, with a jagged black line under her eyelid. He pulls a couple of tissue out of a box on the table and blots them against her eye carefully.

“How's it look? Am I gonna lose the eye? Tell me the truth, I can take it.” She grips her arm for added emphasis.

“It looks fine. I can wet some tissues and clean it, if you want?”

“Thanks,” she says, and kisses his cheek.

For once, Darcy sits still, while he dabs at her eye, and wipes away what's left of the make-up on that side of her face, it's all ruined anyway.

“You'd be a great nurse,” she says. “Of course, no one would go to work any more 'cause they'd all be faking illnesses to go to the ER. Businesses would go under, the healthcare system would be critically overloaded... You'd cause an economic catastrophe.”

“I had no idea,” he says seriously.

“No one would ever blame you though, as long as you turned your puppy eyes on 'em.”

He widens his eyes and tilts his head, geting a pat on the head as reward. He glances up and frowns. “Your hands are shaking,” he murmurs.

She laughs awkwardly and folds her hands in her lap. “Yeah... I guess I'm pretty nervous too.”

“That kinda makes me feel better.”

“Hey,” she says, pushing his shoulder lightly.

He grins. “D'you want me to do your make-up?” At her frown, he adds, “I have steady hands.”

“Well... sure.”

He reapplies the foundation he'd wiped away, smoothing it over her cheekbones, blending it in with the other side. He takes his time with it, enjoying mapping out her face with his fingers, the slight bump on the bridge of her nose, the raised freckles on her cheek.

“I feel like you've done this before,” she says.

“Yeah, um, the girls used to teach me how to do things when they were bored.”

“The 'girls'? And what exactly did these 'girls' teach you?” she asks, raising her eyebrows.

He rolls his eyes. “The USO showgirls. They took pity on me when I was sitting around after shows waiting to be taken back to the barracks. When they discovered that I learnt things really quick, they made me do whatever they didn't want to. I can do French braids, too.”

“Steve, you're a constant surprise.”

“I contain multitudes.”

“Don't I know it.” She picks up the eyeliner tube and hands it to him. “Carry on, Mr Make-Up Artist Man.”

It takes a few attempts to apply the eyeliner successfully, because he comes almost nose to nose with her to do it, and she starts laughing every time, which just leads to him laughing too.

“Darcy,” he says, using his most disapproving tone of voice.

“Okay, okay, I'll be good, I swear. Scout's honour.” She tries to make the hand gesture and frowns. “I don't know what the Scout's honour thing is.”

“It's, uh... Huh, I don't know either.”

“You weren't a Boy Scout?”

“No. I'd've got beaten even worse if I had been.”

“Aw,” she says, “but you would have been so cute in the uniform.”

“Cute doesn't tend to be a positive trait when you're the local punching bag.”

“But just look at you now.”

He strokes his thumb along the underside of her chin and smiles. “Yeah, look at me,” he breathes.

She takes a deep breath and kisses the corner of his mouth. “Come on, I'm over my giggle fit.”

She stays true to her word, and watches him intently as he paints the black lines under her eyes, then hands him her mascara, and lastly her lipstick. There's something strangely erotic about coating her lips in red, outlining them with the pointed tip of the lipstick, wiping at the slight smudge in the corner. He drops his fingertips lower, just below the newly applied lipstick. “You look beautiful.”

She just looks at him for a moment, taking in steady breaths, before turning and looking at herself in the mirror. “Wow,” she breathes, “I really do.”

He rests his elbows on her knees. “You always do.”

“Such a charmer,” she says, grinning at him. She runs her fingers through his hair, messing up his minutes of careful combing. He leans into it, just about fighting his urge to wrap himself around her; he feels a little hot under the collar, like he wants to curl all around her and never let go.

Darcy leans down and kisses his forehead. “I'm going to put my dress on now,” she says.

“Okay,” he says quietly, sitting back. She gives him another kiss on the forehead and gets up to head to the bathroom. He stays where he is, sitting on the floor, while she disappears into the bathroom, then rests his forehead on the chair in front of him and forces himself to breathe.

God, he's going to get married in a couple of hours, and he feels his age so acutely: he feels so _young_ , sitting there in his uncomfortable pants and crisp white shirt. He can hear Darcy clattering around in the bathroom, talking to herself – he's fairly sure that he hears 'fucking zippers!' - and the tightness in his chest seems to ease a little. Maybe they are rushing into things, maybe she's too young and he's too naïve, but fuck it. Everyone else goes ahead and does what they want, why shouldn't they?

He lifts his head and stands up, checking himself in the mirror: he has too very distinct lipstick marks on his forehead. He smiles and digs through her bag, pulling out a squashed looking pack of wipes. He pulls a couple out and works on the lipstick.

“You could've just said if you wanted to try on my make-up,” Darcy drawls.

He looks over his shoulder, searching for a moment for some kind of witty comeback, before he stops altogether. He blinks a couple of times, twisting the wipe between his fingers.

“So, what do you think?” she asks, twirling the skirt a little.

“You look...” He shakes his head.

“Have I rendered you speechless?” she asks, chewing on her lip.

He nods. She looks... _beautiful_ , and that's not even a good enough word for it. There isn't a good enough word for it. The bodice of the dress is silky and tight to her waist, a lacy panel cutting an almost straight line from shoulder to shoulder, and a full skirt with layers of tulle that stops just above her knees. Her hair is falling in loose curls framing her face, and she's got a pair of black lace-up ankle boots on. It feels like his knees are going to give out.

The corners of her mouth tip up uncertainly as he continues to stare at her dumbly. “I know that you're only supposed to wear white if you're, like, pure and untouched but I thought, why should virgins get all the fun? It's a little tight, I normally like a little more room for the girls to breathe, but I saw it at a consignment store, and I was like, that's the one...” She frowns. “Steve, you should probably say something at some point.”

“You look incredible,” he murmurs.

She does a little curtsey and grins. “Why, thank you.”

“No, I mean you...” He bites down hard on his lip and walks up to her, reaching out to lay his hands on her shoulders. “You are... you look... Christ, Darcy.”

“Strong words,” she quips, but her soft tone belies her words.

“Can I touch...?” he says, ghosting his hand along her side.

She rolls her eyes. “Of course you can.”

He drops the wipe twisted in his fingers to the floor and drags a knuckle along the silk at the dip of her waist. He presses his thumb against the curve of her breast and maps it out, chewing on his lip, and spreads his fingers across her side.

“You okay?” she says, tipping her head to one side to look at him. “You look a little... faint.”

“I feel a little faint.”

“Aw,” she says, cupping her hands over his cheeks and giving them a rub. “Should I get the smelling salts?”

“Now you're just being silly.”

She grins and gives him a kiss, then wipes her thumb over his lips to remove the lipstick residue. “Wanna go down now?”

He takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she agrees, smoothing out his shirt. “Grab your shoes.”

“My shoes?”

“Well, I guess you don't have to wear shoes if you don't want to. Stick it to the man, man!”

He drops his gaze to her new lace up boots, and she points the toe of one of them down, showing off.

“They're nice, huh? Cost more than the dress, but I'm going to wear the hell out of these puppies.”

“Yeah...” He looks up at her slightly frowning face. “No, no, I like them. I just... didn't think about shoes.”

“You didn't think about them? What did you bring?”

“Just my sneakers,” he says, nodding at the somewhat muddied, worn down in the heel pair by the dresser.

“Not even those oxfords you've got?”

He shrugs, embarrassed. “They're uncomfortable.”

“Well, hell,” she says, “this is probably going to be the only time I'm ever fancier dressed than you.” She hooks her arm through his. “Come on.”

Downstairs, everyone is in various states of formality: Jane is fidgeting in a black dress, Bruce appears to be fighting with a jacket, his shirt untucked, and Pepper is, of course, perfectly coiffured. Tony is nowhere to be seen.

“Guys,” Bruce murmurs, and nods at Steve and Darcy as they stand awkwardly at the door. Darcy has her fingers twisted around his, hiding it behind his back.

“Whoa,” Jane breathes, “you look gorgeous.” She pauses and smiles. “You too, Darcy.”

“I'm busting a gut,” Darcy says. She gives Steve's fingers a squeeze and lets go of them, stepping further into the room. He follows. “By the way, you're all horrible people for not offering to help with, like, anything.”

“I was in a meeting!” Pepper exclaims.

“I was in Tony's workshop,” Jane adds.

“Sorry,” Bruce murmurs. He looks at Steve's shoes and frowns. Then everyone's looking, and the only way to stop them would be to hide behind Darcy, which wouldn't be weird at all.

“I forgot my nice shoes,” he mumbles.

“Could he wear a pair of Tony's?” Jane asks Pepper.

Pepper shakes her head. “Mm, Tony's a size eight. You're, what, a thirteen?”

Everyone's still looking. This is certainly the first time that it's been Steve's feet that have drawn all the attention. “Yeah.”

“I'm an eight too,” Bruce says, running his fingers through his hair. “Sorry.”

“Whatever,” Darcy says, “how often do you think that its going to be _Steve_ lowering the tone of an event I'm at?”

“Seriously,” Jane says.

Darcy waves a finger at her. “You're already on thin ice, Calamity Jane.”

“Mr Stark has returned with Mr and Mrs Lewis,” Jarvis informs them.

Oh God. He squeaks a little, immediately glad that Tony isn't around to hear it, and Darcy reaches back and grabs his hand again.

“Are they all in one piece?” Pepper asks.

“My tentative answer is yes, Ms Potts,” Jarvis replies.

Darcy turns to face him. “You okay?”

“I...” He shakes his head. “I guess we're gonna find out.”

“That's the spirit!” she says, clapping her hands together.

“If you're ever in New York, I can totally set you up with a killer suite at the Waldorf...”

Darcy squeezes his hand. “Get ready,” she murmurs, before she turns to Tony and her parents as they walk through the door. “Hey!” she says, throwing her arms wide.

There are a lot of hurried and confused greetings and introductions, and Steve gladly slides into the background as Darcy gets everyone acquainted.

Tony wanders over to Steve while Darcy is being hugged within an inch of her life. “Nice shoes,” he murmurs.

“I forgot my good shoes, okay, can everyone just drop it?” he snaps defensively. Everyone looks at him, Sam even releases Darcy from his hug, and Tony cocks an eyebrow.

“I was being sincere, _actually_ ,” he says smugly. Pepper clicks her tongue and grabs the back of Tony's shirt, hauling him out of the room, to Tony's indignant, “what did I do?” Jane and Bruce follow them out.

Steve runs a hand through his hair and smiles sheepishly at Sam and Elaine. “Hi.”

“Steven,” Elaine says, and if a hole could just open up right under his feet, that would be really excellent.

“ _Mom_ ,” Darcy says, crossing her arms over chest. “How many times do I have to tell you, be nice to Steve.”

“I'm nice,” she says.

“I can't believe Captain America's going to be my son-in-law,” Sam says suddenly. “I thought I was going to have to make conversation over Thanksgiving dinners with some little grease ball good for nothing. It's such a trade up.”

“Yes, sir--” he stumbles, trying to switch gears halfway through, “-aaam,” he finishes, and shoves his hands in his pockets. “I stopped myself,” he says to Sam's amused look.

“He's learning,” Darcy says, and holds out her hand to beckon him closer.

It feels like he's presenting himself for inspection, and he's fairly sure he comes up wanting, as Elaine's eyes drift from his battered shoes to his slightly wrinkled shirt to his open collar. Darcy half steps in front of him.

“You're freaking him out, stop it,” she says.

He laughs a little. “I'm okay.”

“You look fine,” Elaine says. “Very handsome.”

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

She purses her lips, eyes flicking between the two of them, and Sam looks a little nervous. “Okay,” she says, “I'm not even going to ask why you two feel like you can't possibly wait until you've known each other twelve months before getting married, because God knows Darcy always does the opposite of what I say. And I'm not going to trot out any bullshit about treating her right--”

“Elaine, do you really think this is necessary?” Sam says quietly.

“I geared myself up the entire ride over here to lecture Captain America,” she says, waving her finger at Sam, so much like Darcy that Steve has to bite his lip to stop from laughing. Darcy looks back at him and grins. “I'm not backing out now.”

Sam raises his hands. “Sorry, sorry, continue.”

“Thank you,” she says, and looks back at Steve. “Steve,” she says.

“Yes, ma'am,” he says.

“My daughter will quite possibly eat you alive,” she says, which gets an indignant 'hey!' from Darcy. “Are you prepared for that?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And you understand that being raised in the nineties is a world away from being raised in the twenties?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And that your values and morals might sometimes be diametrically opposed?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Is any of this actually going in?”

“Yes, ma'am... Elaine,” he says, and smiles.

Elaine rolls her eyes. “Maybe you two are perfect for each other.”

“We think so,” Darcy says. “Okay, lecture over, professor?”

Elaine sighs. “Yes, yes, you have my permission to marry a man you barely know.”

Sam throws his hands wide. “Welcome to the family, Steve!” he says, and gives him a hug before Steve can stop him.

-

They spend the next hour or so milling around, chatting and grazing on food, and really, Steve realises, they should have waited till later to get ready, because watching Darcy wander around, twirling her dress every now and then just because it's fun, is kind of killing him. And his pants are getting wrinkled.

“Are you okay?” Bruce asks, leaning against the arm of the couch beside Steve.

Steve drags his gaze away from Darcy having a very vigorous conversation with Tony – they're neck and neck for amount of hand gestures used. “Yeah... I'm just nervous.”

“You know that's normal, right?”

“Yeah...”

“Not thinking about backing out, are you?” Bruce asks softly.

Steve snaps his head around to Bruce. “What? No! Jesus...”

Bruce smiles. “Just checking. Are you thinking about the people who aren't here?”

Steve looks at his hands. “Yeah... I always thought my best friend was gonna be my best man. I mean... I didn't think I was going to get married at all, but still. And then I thought... well, there was a woman. Before. And I thought maybe something would happen.”

“I'm sorry.”

He shakes his head. “No, 'cause if things hadn't gone the way they did, I'd've probably died by now, and I'm... I've never been in love like this before.” He pulls a face. “I know that sounds really corny, by the way.”

“It's nice,” Bruce says, smiling in a way that Steve can't help but think of as fatherly.

Jane hurries over to them. “The Justice of the Peace is here!” she says, and then hugs Steve quickly, finishing it off with a kiss to his cheek.

“Tony wanted me to get ordained online and be the to marry you two,” Bruce says, as Jane bustles away.

-

The guy looks very professional, to Steve's relief. He's dressed nicer than Steve, in fact, he's got a tie and shiny shoes and everything.

“Just give us a minute,” Pepper says to room, dropping her palm to the guy's elbow and leading him out after brief introductions. Steve wonders if she's about to get the guy to sign a million contracts about privacy.

Darcy settles down next to him on his spot against the arm of the couch, Bruce having gone over to Tony after patting Steve on the shoulder.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey.”

She reaches over and takes his hand, lacing their fingers together. “I'm really fucking nervous.”

He laughs. “Me too. Bruce says it's normal.”

“Okay, good. I think my dad's in love with Tony... This is all so weird.”

“Isn't it?” he agrees, laughing softly. “I'll be glad when we're home, honestly. Tony's world is definitely not for me.”

“I could stand to have some of his money,” she says, “but yeah, cozy apartments in Brooklyn are where it's at.”

He leans over and kisses her cheek, careful not to mess up her make-up. “Are you gonna do the 'something old, something new' thing?”

“I already am,” she says. “You're old...”

“Thanks.”

“And new! And borrowed... from last century? That one doesn't really work, though, since I'm not giving you back. And you've got those crazy blue eyes, of course.”

He grins. “We're actually doin' this, huh?”

She bumps her shoulder into his. “Yeah, we are.”

Pepper appears at the door again. “Okay, everyone, come on.”

“You're gonna love this,” Tony calls to Steve.

“Where are we going?” he murmurs to Darcy. She shrugs and pulls him to his feet.

Pepper leads them through a maze of corridors that Steve's fairly sure that he'd never be able to find his way back from, until they get to a vast sunroom, all decorated in lights and flowers.

“Wow,” he murmurs.

“Just something me and Tony threw together last night,” Pepper says, shrugging.

“You just 'threw this together'?” Darcy says. “When I throw things together, it's, like, tissue paper and Jägerbombs..”

Pepper grins. “Well, we're ready when you are.”

Darcy turns to Steve and grabs his hands. “We cool?”

He bites his lip for a moment, then smiles. “We're cool.”

She grins back, then pushes herself up on her tiptoes and kisses him.

“You're supposed to do that after,” Tony heckles from across the room. Steve feels Darcy's hand slide into his hair and grip it tight in response, and judging by the light chuckle he hears, he's pretty sure that she makes a crude hand gesture as well.

She lets go after a couple more seconds and wipes the lipstick from his mouth again, then straightens his shirt and pats him on the chest. “Okay, let's do this marriage thing.”

“Let's do it.”

Pepper quickly introduces them to the Justice of the Peace, though Steve has never cared less about anything in his life than this guy's name and credentials. He and Darcy take their place in front of him, with the others grouped loosely around them, and the man goes through all the usual stuff, 'we are gathered here today' etc., etc. Steve honestly isn't paying any attention, just staring at Darcy and holding her hands and twisting their fingers together.

“...do you have your own vows prepared?”

Steve blinks. “Huh?”

Tony sniggers.

“Have you written your own vows?” the guys tries again, frowning a little, like Steve's a complete moron.

“Uh...” He looks at Darcy; he hadn't even thought about that, he hadn't thought about what the ceremony would entail at all.

“I'm not promising to obey you,” she says, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “and most likely I won't honour you, either.” She twists her mouth. “Sorry.”

He smiles. “I could... I could say something.”

“Okay, you go then.”

He takes a deep breath. “Okay. Okay... So...” He glances to the side, and Tony gives him the thumbs up. He rolls his eyes and looks back at Darcy. “So, I never thought anything like this would ever happen to me... I mean, punching Hitler and becoming a superhero, sure, but a girlfriend? That was just pushing it.” There's a smattering of laughter, and Darcy squeezes his hands harder. “But you... Darcy... I felt like I was drowning, before. And, I mean, sometimes I still do, but then you're there, and... I-- I feel like me again, but... better. Happier. So much happier. Darcy... you saved my life.” He bites his lip. Darcy's eyes are red-rimmed, and he knows he shouldn't be happy about that, but it's a feat to get her to cry, and he's kind of proud of himself. “And... you look beautiful in that dress.”

She sniffs and wipes her nose. “Uh... same to you.”

Someone laughs, a little too loud, and Steve glances over. Sam is sniffling, with a tissue to his nose, and Tony looks a little less composed, too. Darcy tugs on his hands to bring his attention back to her.

“Wait, I want to say something,” Darcy says, pushing her thumbs into the centre of his palms. “Um. Um.”

God, she's nervous. She's never nervous, she always has something to say. He holds her hands tighter and tries for a reassuring smile, but it's probably a bit too wobbly for that.

She sets her jaw and tips her chin up. “I never had much luck picking up guys in parks before, but I think I did all right this time. Thanks for not being a creeper.”

He laughs. “You're welcome.”

She grins back and clears her thought. “That's all I had to say,” she says to the Justice.

“Oh, yes, well...” he says. “And now Steven and Darcy will exchange rings.”

Darcy's eyes widen.

“Rings,” Steve says. “They're... in the suitcase.”

Darcy makes a face at him, and he ducks his head. “Sorry,” he murmurs.

“Ahem,” Pepper says loudly, drawing their attention to her. She shoots a look at Tony, and he rolls his eyes. 

“Where are they?” he asks in a resigned tone.

“Inside pocket of the red suitcase,” Steve replies, and Tony looks pained but moves anyway, to Pepper's approving nod. “Thanks!”

“We are such losers,” Darcy says, grinning, swinging their hands gently from side to side.

“We are,” he agrees.

“The show'll be back on the road soon, folks,” Darcy says, leaning into Steve. Her mother looks faintly amused, and her father is dabbing at his eyes with the edge of his tissue, and somehow this culmination of Steve's stupidity today, from his bowtie to his shoes to the vows he didn't prepare, make him feel warm and happy and _loved_. He smiles down at Darcy and she smiles back, her lips a perfect red bow that's going to end up all over his face and the sheets later on, and he probably shouldn't think about _that_ right now.

“The day is saved!” Tony calls, jogging back into the room with the little black box holding the rings, and tosses it to Steve. “Your room's a real mess, you know. This isn't a hotel,” he adds.

Steve flips the case open and pulls the rings out, handing the bigger one to Darcy, and stuffing the box in his pocket.

“Repeat after me,” the Justice says. “With this ring, I thee wed.”

Darcy grabs Steve's hand and jams the ring on gracelessly. “With this ring, I thee wed,” she says a little breathlessly.

He takes her hand and looks at it for a second, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, before sliding the ring on. “With this ring, I thee we--”

She almost knocks him off his feet with her kiss, using his shoulders as leverage to drag herself up. He wraps his arms around her waist and anchors her against him.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife...” the Justice says.

Somebody definitely whoops, it sounds suspiciously like Tony, but Steve just holds her tighter and tries to keep in mind that they are, in fact, standing in front of her parents and an officer of the court.

Darcy breaks off first, wiping her thumb along his bottom lip in a way that makes his knees go a little weak. “So, this is marriage,” she murmurs. “I could get used to this.”

“Yeah...”

“What do we do now?”

He shrugs, he really hadn't thought about this day any further than the actual marriage part. “I don't know.”

“Actually...” Tony begins, and then reality comes crashing back, and Darcy's hugging her parents and Steve's hugging her parents too, and Bruce is patting him on the back, and Sam is _still_ crying.

“He's been crying on and off since we got up,” Elaine says.

“ _Actually_ ,” Tony says again, louder, and Steve tips his head towards him, settling his arm around Darcy's waist. Tony smiles. “Me and Pep got you a wedding present.”

“You got us a wedding, Tony, you didn't need to get us a present, too.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Pep?”

“We booked you a floor at Casa del Mar,” she says. “For privacy, you know.”

“Whoa, what's this?” Darcy says, wrapping her arms around Steve's waist and leaning around.

“And this is the number of our pilot, for when you decide where you want to go on honeymoon.” She holds a business card out between her fingers, and Darcy snatches it up before Steve is even able to raise his hand.

“Whoa,” she repeats. “This is way too generous, but we graciously accept.”

“We do?” he asks.

She arches an eyebrow and reaches up to whisper in his ear, “Think of all the things I could do to you with a whole floor to ourselves.”

He hopes the shiver that runs down his spine isn't too obvious. “Oh. Yes, okay, yeah, we accept.”

“We got you a vase,” Sam says sadly.

“Yeah, you did,” Darcy says, and kisses him on the cheek, then hugs her mom. “I guess we should go get our shit together and get to this palace before Pepper decides that she doesn't like us enough.”

“Hurry,” Pepper says, smiling.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is BUTT STUFF in this chapter. If you don't enjoy BUTT STUFF you should probably skip the last two thousand or so words of this chapter. Also, this chapter is basically just sex, with a little tiny bit of angst in the middle, so there's that.

The hotel is incredible: it has floor to ceiling windows, views of the beach, a four poster bed, and fancy couches and tables with clawed feet. Steve is positive that he's going to break something before the day is out.

“Oh my God, there's like a swimming pool in here,” Darcy calls from the bathroom. 

Steve edges around a table and leans his head through the doorway. There's an enormous sunken bath tub in the corner, underneath shutters that open out to the bedroom.

“It's me-sized,” he says.

“Oh, we're gonna have _so much fun_ ,” she says, and turns to him, laying her hands on his chest and pushing him back into the bedroom.

He's mostly undressed by the time they make it to the bed, but she's still in her dress, and he enjoys the way it feels under his fingers as he gently sweeps his hands up and down her back, then around to the front to cup her breasts. It doesn't take long for things to get a little more frantic, though, and Darcy's holding onto his hair so tight that he really can't think at all.

“Hey,” she pants against his mouth, “as hot as it would be for you to rip my clothes off, I actually like this dress.”

“Huh?” he groans, forcing his eyes open again. He looks down at his hands fisted in the white material. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Unzip me?” she says, scooting around so that he can get to it.

He wipes his face on his arm, then carefully tugs the tiny zipper down and pushes the dress off her shoulders. “Oh,” he murmurs, running his fingers down the black lace that's revealed.

“I thought you'd like it,” she says, pushing herself up onto her knees for a moment to pull the dress over her head, then turns back to him and throws the dress onto the floor.

“Your breasts look incredible,” he says, because they _do_. It's not like he doesn't always appreciate them, but _wow_.

She give them a jiggle, and his dick jumps at that. “It's a longline bra,” she says, “those chicks knew how to make their boobs look great, back in the day.”

He bites his lip and nods distractedly. 

“You still with me?” she asks, pressing her hand to his side, then dropping it lower, to his hip.

“Mm,” he hums, and pushes her down onto the bed, holding himself up over her with his knees and elbows. She smirks at him, her lipstick a little disturbed, though not nearly enough for his satisfaction. He grins back, diving in to kiss her. She locks her legs around his waist and grinds up against him in the most delicious way possible. “Rubber,” he gasps.

“Yeah,” she agrees breathlessly, squirming out from under him to get at the suitcase. He collapses back to the bed and tries to breathe while she flings clothes everywhere looking for the box. “I _did_ bring them,” she murmurs, and Steve certainly hopes so because the sight of the curve of her waist and her round hips in that bra is making his body begin to hum.

“Aha!” she says, pulling it out and tossing it to him. 

He scrambles to roll on a rubber as she strips off her underwear and gets back on the bed, then pulls her into his lap, pressing his hands to her hips and kissing her soundly, enjoying the friction of her thigh against his dick. He slides his hands higher, over rough lace, and holds her tighter.

“Hang on,” she murmurs.

“Uhn,” he groans, his hips twitching in response.

Darcy laughs and kisses his forehead. “I know I look super hot in this thing, but it's actually really uncomfortable.”

“Oh, oh right,” he mutters, running his fingers down the closure at the back.

“It's just like a regular bra's hooks, only more of them.”

“I've got it,” he says, feeling out the hooks and flicking each of them open in turn.

She slumps a little in his arms when he gets it fully undone. “I think I just gained two inches,” she says.

“You're beautiful,” he says, “I love you.”

She tugs the bra off her arms and drops it to the floor before cupping his face in her hands. “Same to you, on both counts.”

He gets her on her back again, her legs tightly bracketing his hips, and pushes in and _up_. He pauses for a moment, resting his forehead on her chest to gather himself and let the shuddering ache in his limbs dissipate. Darcy slides her hand down his side and digs her fingers in at his waist, arching against him.

He grunts and shudders, and Darcy runs her fingers into his hair. “You all right?”

He nods, kissing her again, then thrusts into her hard and fast, straddling the line between enough for her and too much for him.

“Yes,” she hisses, twisting her fingers in his hair. “I'm gonna come just from this, I swear to God.”

He bites back a moan, and presses his nose against her neck. God, she smells so _good_ , like make up and body wash and _her_ , and he thinks he could stay like this forever and be perfectly happy. But Darcy shifts and pulls hard at his hair, and everything isn't always about _him_ , he knows. 

He pushes himself up onto his knees some more, reaching down to grip her hips and move her with him, trying his best to go for hard, fast strokes, using the rhythm of her breathing as a guide: when it hitches and thins out he knows he's on the right track. She clutches at his shoulders and tips her head back, and he lifts his eyes enough to see how her tongue is sticking out of the corner of her mouth, and it hits him like a ton of bricks, _again_ , how gorgeous she is, and how she married _him_. He presses forward again, pushing her a couple of inches up the bed, and lets his pace go erratic. Her soft panting ratchets up a couple of notches and her fingers dig into his skin even harder.

The way her muscles contract around him as she comes almost makes his eyes roll back in his head; he has to dig both his hands into the sheets to stay enough in control that he won't push too hard and hurt her. They're both panting hard, but she's coming down, he knows, and he's getting more wound by the second. “Flip?” she asks breathlessly.

“ _Yes_ ,” he groans, dropping to one side as she pulls herself up, rolling the two of them. He arches his back immediately, free to enjoy the sensations that pulse beneath his skin, to let his limbs shake and shudder. He shuts his eyes and bites his lips.

“Steve,” she says, and then again because he's having trouble focusing on anything other than the heat on his skin. “Steve, no one can hear you except me.”

His mouth drops open at that, and his ensuing breaths come harder and louder, until it feels like he's hyper-ventilating, but in the _best_ way possible. Everything feels even more heightened than normal, like letting everything out is charging him up. His orgasm completely blind sides him, shuddering through him, and he moans and moans and _moans_ just as much as he wants to.

He lets his eyes flutter open a couple of minutes later, and Darcy is smiling down at him. “Man,” she says, “you really are a screamer.”

He snorts and rubs at his face. “Yeah.”

“So much fun,” she murmurs.

They order room service that gets delivered outside their door with a brief knock. Darcy seems to have a permanent grin plastered on her face as she lies on the bed, picking through the food and looking through all the books and magazines in the room with stained fingers. “This is what it's like to be rich.”

He rubs his feet along the soft sheets. “It's pretty nice.”

“You are the king of understatement, dude.”

“Does that mean I get a crown?”

“Diamond encrusted.”

He laughs. “Cool.”

She rolls over onto her side. “Oh my God, I've ruined you.”

He lets his mouth drop open in mock horror. “Oh no, whatever will I do?”

She climbs on top of him and pulls his arms up over his head, pinning them there with her fingers around his wrists. “It's a lost cause, we may as well just give up now.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she murmurs, leaning down and fitting their mouths together.

-

“There's a swimming pool!” Darcy yells while Steve is looking through a stack of vacation brochures. It's the middle of the night, but they went to sleep pretty early, after all the excitement of the day.

“The tub's not _that_ big,” he calls back, running his finger down the description of Mauritius. Right now, he's thinking that Paris is the way to go: Darcy wants to go, and at least he speaks French _a little_.

“No, an actual pool!” Darcy shouts, swinging around the door frame. “It's, like, Olympic length, and apparently it's 'closed for repairs'. We should go swimming!”

“Now? It's the middle of the night.”

She shrugs. “I'm bored.”

“I, uh, I don't have trunks.”

“Oh, Pepper thought of everything!” She disappears for a moment, then comes back with a pair of red trunks that she tosses to him. 

He holds them up – he's slightly surprised that Tony didn't somehow switch them out for Speedos. “Well... okay, then, I guess.”

“The enthusiasm,” Darcy says, widening her eyes at him. “You're gonna be singing a different tune when you see my swimming costume.”

Her swimming costume _is_ pretty great, he reflects once they're at the pool, everything around them perfectly still and silent. It's ruched down the sides, highlighting her waist and her hips, reminiscent of a style he's used to.

Darcy cannonballs into the pool, splashing him with water. “Oh, it's heated,” she says happily, and swims to the edge. “Coming in?”

“Yeah...” he murmurs.

She frowns. “Can you swim?”

“Yeah, of course I can.”

She frowns harder when he doesn't move. “Are you... okay with water?”

“Um.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “Maybe not?”

“Okay...” She runs her hands through the water slowly. “Do you want to go back to the room?”

He shakes his head. “Uh... no. No, it's fine. It's only water, right?”

“Right,” she says, backing up a little, beckoning him in.

“I think I'll just...” He lowers himself to the edge, warm water reaching up to his knees. Darcy gives him such a goofy thumbs up that he laughs and pushes himself in. The water reaches his waist and it's okay, it's warm and calm and nothing at all like the ocean.

“So, you can swim?” she asks again, eyeing his tense stance.

“Yeah, I, uh, had a little trial by fire when I had to swim after a Nazi in a miniature sub.”

She screws her face up, laughing softly. “That is possibly the most quintessentially Steve thing you've ever said.”

He grins. “It is fairly unique, yeah.”

“But you don't look totally chill, though. You're not so hot with water, I guess?”

That's a pretty Darcy thing to say, he reflects. “Well, you know, I...” He motions downward with his hand.

“Oh,” she says, her brow wrinkling. “You're afraid of drowning?”

“Not... not really?” He shrugs. “I don't know, it's weird.”

She chews on her lip. “It's not weird. Do you want to hang out or do laps or something?”

“I could do laps, yeah.”

She watches him carefully for a moment, then smiles. “Catch me if you can,” she says, and takes off.

He waits a second, then follows her, overtaking her after a moment.

“Seriously?” Darcy calls after him, splashing him a little.

He laughs, slowing down as he reaches the edge; he puts his hand out to touch it, looking back at her, and misses. His heart does this strange stuttering thing as he feels himself sink and he flails for a moment before his fingers find the cool tiles.

“You okay?” she asks. She treads water beside him, squinting at him without her glasses on.

“Uh huh,” he mumbles, looking down at the clear water. There's got to be four feet of water beneath his feet, more than enough to drown in, his traitorous brain informs him. “I'm not... so good at floating, is all.”

She's surprised, he can tell. A twenty seven year old who doesn't know how to float – it's kind of pathetic, but she covers it well. “This is why people don't learn to swim before they can float,” Darcy says.

“I don't think that's how the saying goes.”

“Eh. Come here, I'm gonna teach you how to float. Floating awesome, it's like... floating.”

“Floating's like floating?” Steve repeats. “Who'd've thought it?”

She splashes him, then grabs his waist and turns him around to face the edge. “Okay, hold onto the edge and see if you can let your legs float up.”

“On my stomach? I don't think I can do it face down.” He narrows his eyes when she sniggers. “Yes, I know how that sounded.”

“As long as you did,” she says. “Okay, come back to the shallow end.”

He swims back with her until he can feel the floor of the pool again, and breathes what he hopes is a very quiet sigh of relief.

“All right,” Darcy says, getting behind him. He tries to turn too, but she just tuts and pushes him back to face the front. “Lean back against me.”

“What?”

“I'm teaching you how to float. Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do.” God, they're in three feet of water, what does he think is going to happen?

“So, lean back. This is quite literally a trust exercise.”

He nods, trying to get himself to relax enough to fall back against her. He's made it a habit in his life _not_ to fall.

It takes a couple of goes, but he gets it eventually, and Darcy puts her hands on his back to hold him up as he kicks his legs. “I feel stupid,” he murmurs.

“Everyone has to do the stupid learning to float thing sometime. And I'm a hell of a lot nicer than my swim instructor was, back in the day. 'Lewis, keep your head up!', 'Lewis, relax your arm!', 'Lewis, quit crying in the corner!'. My time on the high school swim team was brief.”

He laughs and Darcy gently lets go of his back. “And there you go,” she says, “floating.”

He glances down at his feet, his toes just visible above the water. “Huh.”

Once he's got that, everything else comes easily. Darcy shows him how to do the front crawl, the back crawl, and the butterfly stroke, then sulks when he's better at it than she is.

“Baby,” he murmurs, and dunks under the water before she can splash him. Which defeats the purpose, really. She chases him across the pool, until she has him hemmed into a corner, then jumps him, using the edges on either side of him as leverage. He grabs her hips and steadies her, giving her the opportunity to pull herself up and kiss him, both of them half submerged in water.

“I'm bored with swimming,” Darcy murmurs. “Let's go back upstairs.”

“Yeah,” he says, “let's.”

-

They've been at the hotel for two days, and Steve doesn't think he's ever been so lazy in his life. They haven't even left the building yet, despite the fact that there's a beach right outside their window. It was too cold outside, Darcy had pronounced, and pulled the covers over their heads. Steve didn't argue.

At the best of times they have a... robust sex life, but those two days are something else. They barely get out of bed at all, and Steve doesn't think he's ever felt this relaxed and satisfied. He could stay under these covers with her forever – in fact he wishes he really could. He wishes they could run away from everything and be left alone to just be together. He doesn't say it to Darcy, though, because he knows it sounds a little crazy.

“Hey,” she says, poking him between the ribs.

“Mm?”

“You're looking a little, I dunno, squirrelly,” she says, pushing herself up onto an elbow to look at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah, God, I'm great. I feel great.”

She grins. “Good, 'cause I've been thinking.”

“Uh oh,” he murmurs, and she sticks her tongue out at him.

“You remember how I introduced you to Captain Prostate?”

“Boy, do I.”

“Good. And you know that there are other ways to get to it, right?”

“Uh...” He runs his fingers through his hair. “You mean the...?”

If he's not mistaken, Darcy's blushing a little. “Yeah. Well, I, uh, I did that to a boyfriend once and man, he was in a haze for days. So I was thinking that maybe...? But only if you're totally okay with it, don't agree otherwise.”

“So... you wanna stick your fingers up my ass?” he asks, and she chokes a little, but nods. “Okay.”

“Really?”

“Sure, why not?”

“I can think of lots of reasons why a guy would object to it.”

He smiles. “I'm secure in my masculinity.”

“Aren't you just,” she mutters, sitting up and straddling his hips. She pushes his arms up over his head and holds them there as she kisses him, curling her tongue around his, until he's groaning deep in his throat. She pulls back a little and nuzzles her nose against his. “Christ,” she murmurs, “it sounds like you're _purring_.”

He thinks maybe he _is_ , and smiles stupidly at her. She smiles back and gives him a peck on the lips before she climbs off him. “Stay there,” she says, and he nods.

She digs around in the suitcase for a moment, before coming back to the bed with a tube and what looks kind of like a tissue box in her hands. “I came prepared,” she says, arching an eyebrow, and puts them down on his stomach.

It isn't a tissue box, he can tell now, it's a box of surgical gloves. “Swiped them from Jane's lab,” she explains.

He nods again and picks up the tube of lubricant. It's kind of dented and half empty. “It looks like you've got quite a bit of use out of this already,” he says.

She clicks her tongue. “Did I say you could move your arm?” she says, and pulls it back up over his head. “And before you get all jealous over my past lovers, I used up most of it on solo jobs.”

“I'm not jealous,” he murmurs. “Why would you need it for solo stuff, though?”

“I wore out several vibrators while you wanted to remain pure and untouched.”

“Oh,” he says, and laughs. Considering what they're about to do, it seems pretty damn funny.

His laughter chokes off as she pulls a glove on with a snap and drops the box to the floor. His hips twitch of their own accord.

“I was going to ask if you were sure, but I guess I have my answer,” Darcy says.

He hums his agreement, and she picks up the tube, twists the cap off and squeezes some out onto her gloved fingers. A shiver runs through him, and he spreads his legs a little wider. She flashes her teeth at him.

“Very good. Okay, now...” She pulls his hips up and rests them on her knees, which is kind of a weird position to be in, but it's not bad by any stretch of the imagination. She chews on her lip as she looks at him. “Tell me if anything happens that you don't like.” When he doesn't respond, she taps him on the leg. “Steve?”

“Mm hm,” he hums.

She tuts. “Well, all right then,” she murmurs, and he feels her slick fingers press against his asshole, and he forces himself not to squirm, because it feels incredibly odd, and not altogether pleasant.

“Okay?” she asks.

“It's... strange, but it's okay. Keep... keep going, I can take it.” He smiles to himself, knowing she isn't going to get the joke.

She pushes in a second finger, and he grimaces a little, staring up at the ceiling. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

He must twitch or tense up or something, because Darcy pauses, wrapping her free hand around his knee. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No, no,” he says. His face is starting to heat up, but he'll be damned if they aren't at least going to get to the good part. “No, it's fine.”

“I think I'm about to hit your prostate,” she says.

He nods, to himself, since at this angle she can't see him properly, and she slides her fingers deeper until she hits the spot and he goes from half-hard to coming, untouched, in a matter of seconds. “Oh God, fuck!” he shouts, slamming his hand into the headboard of the bed.

“Uh...” Darcy murmurs, tipping her chin up to look at him. “Was that... good, or...?”

“Kinda painful,” he grunts, unpleasant aftershocks forcing their way out of him. 'And not the good kind' is implied, he feels.

“Okay, this was a bad idea, I'm gonna...” She starts to pull her fingers out, brushing against his prostate as she does, and his whole body just sort of... turns on.

“Uhn,” he groans, “wait, just, just... wait..”

“Steve?”

He squeezes his eyes shut and struggles to get his bearings. “Just... slower, please.”

“You sure?” 

He groans, his legs shuddering slightly.

“Okay, okay,” she mutters, and rubs her fingers over his prostate again, more gently this time.

It's like... Jesus, he doesn't even know what it's like, he has never felt anything like this before. It's more than being aroused, it's... his whole world hinging around this one thing, this one sensation, this one person. It's the most intensely pleasurable sensation he's ever felt.

“Oh God,” he groans, rocking his hips.

“Good?” she asks.

“So good,” he moans, “so, so, so good, please, Darcy, _Darcy_.”

“What?” she asks softly, and runs her free hand over his stomach. “What do you want?” 

Her fingers push in harder and he arches his back, scrabbling to hold onto the headboard.

“Jesus,” he hears her say over the rush in his ears, and her fingernails drag across his stomach, sending vibrations skittering on his skin. “You want me to touch you?”

“Anywhere,” he gasps, “ _please_.”

“I've got you,” she reassures, and sweeps her hand up his side and across his stomach, through the slick mess left behind from before, then rubs against his nipples. He lets himself just shake and pant, only barely aware of how achingly hard he is, until she settles back down between his legs and wraps her fingers around his dick, pressing her thumb against the head. He rocks his hips, and it doesn't matter which way he goes, it's all like fireworks on his skin, and he's pretty sure he's whimpering. She pushes harder against his prostate, and his whole body spasms as he comes, all over her hand and his stomach, and it's the most incredible thing he's ever felt, it blisters on his skin and he has no idea what he's doing or what sounds he's making, but he thinks maybe he's begging her for something, because she's talking in soothing tones as she works him over.

Eventually everything subsides, and Darcy starts sliding her fingers out slowly. His whole body shudders with disappointment. “Don't stop,” he pants.

“Huh?”

He pushes back down against her fingers, toes curling as they hit his prostate. “Please,” he moans.

“I... okay,” she murmurs, “but you've gotta tell me when you've had enough.”

He moans again, eyelids fluttering, squirming against her.

“Uh huh,” she hums, “I guess you're not going to be telling me anything, huh?”

He whimpers a little and shifts.

“Okay... So, uh... okay, thump your hand against the wall when you want me to stop.” When he doesn't respond, she pulls her fingers back a little. “Steve, did you hear me?”

“Uhn,” he grunts, feeling around behind his head for a moment before banging his hand against the wall.

“Okay,” she says, and gets right back to it.

It rolls through him, the constant high of arousal and the sensation of two, three more orgasms, and he loves... God he _loves_ that his body will let him do this. It feels absolutely incredible, like every one of his muscles are twitching and shuddering with pleasure. Christ, if she doesn't stop soon he's going to clean pass out, which he doesn't think he'd mind very much, but Darcy probably would, so he forces himself to lift his hand and knock it against the wall.

“Okay,” she murmurs, and slowly pulls her fingers back out. It feels strange at first, his body has adjusted to the addition so well.

“Jesus,” he mumbles, trying to force his eyes open. He succeeds in opening one of them.

“No Jesus here, buddy,” Darcy says, rubbing her hand up and down his leg. He looks down as best he can.

He is _covered_ in his own semen. “Ugh,” he grunts, grimacing.

Darcy chuckles. “It's fine, I'll deal with it. Just go to sleep.”

Now, _that_ sounds like a plan. “Okay,” he sighs, dropping his head back onto the pillow.

He wakes up draped over her, his chest pressed to hers, their legs tangled together. He stretches his arms out a little and opens his eyes slowly. It's still dark, but from his position he can't see what time it is and doesn't feel much compelled to get up and find out, completely content where he is. Darcy sighs and shifts in her sleep, though, and it occurs to him that he might be squashing her a little.

He lifts his head an inch. “Darce? 'm I squashin' you?” he mumbles.

She pats at his hair, which he guesses means he isn't, and he puts his head down, eyes drifting shut again. It's not long before he's back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a visual aid, I would like to draw your attention to the last picture in [this set](http://boombangbing.tumblr.com/post/23721162266/hemsworthss-favourite-photoshoot-of-chris-evans), which is basically how I imagine Steve looks after certain... activities.


	10. Chapter 10

They do get out of the hotel the day after. Steve still feels a little dazed, which Darcy seems just delighted about, and they wander aimlessly along the beach until they hit Santa Monica Pier, which is pretty empty, not surprising for ten o'clock on a Wednesday morning in February. Steve even risks taking his sunglasses off, but leaves the baseball cap on.

“Oh!” Darcy says, tugging on his arm. “That guy over there is selling roses! That is such a cliché. Get me one?”

He laughs and fishes his wallet out of his back pocket. “Sure,” he says, opening it up, flicking through receipts that he's left stuffed in there. He comes up empty. “Oh, uh... I don't have any cash on me, just cards. That guy doesn't look like he takes cards.”

“Wow, you really have acclimated to the twenty first century, huh?” Darcy says. She gets her own wallet out of her pocket, pulls out a five dollar bill and hands it to him. “Go on, then,” she says, patting him forcefully on the back.

He rolls his eyes at her and wanders over to the little old man. “Can I get one of those, please?”

The guy looks like it's his lucky day, and selects the nicest rose out of a pretty sorry looking lot, Steve's beginning to notice. “Two dollars,” the guys says, and Steve gives over the five and gets his change. “Pretty girl,” the guy observes.

“Isn't she,” Steve says, and smiles. “Thanks.”

He walks back over to her and presents the rose. “A rose for my rose,” he says.

She takes the rose and gives it a sniff, smiling. “Where did you hear that?”

He shrugs. “I know things.”

“Hm,” she hums. “Where's my change?”

“You're so suspicious,” he says, handing over the three dollars.

She grins and tucks the rose into her hair, the thornless stem in her hair, the flower behind her ear.

“You look like a salsa dancer,” he says.

She shimmies her hips a little. “We should totally do that sometime.”

“Nooo,” he says, “I've got two left feet.”

“Pfft, you're like the least clumsy person I've ever met. Unless we're having sex, but that's different.”

He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Don't shoot down my excuses.”

“Aw,” she says, threading her arm through his. “They've got an aquarium here. Let's go look at weird fish.”

They look at all the weird fish, eat a stupid amount of ice cream, play games at the arcade – where Steve beats the high score on _Galaga_ and wins enough tickets on the skee ball to get Darcy a ridiculous, enormous blue teddy bear. For her part, Darcy wipes the floor with a twelve year old at Dance Dance Revolution, but then gives the kid their left over tickets when Steve looks disapprovingly at her celebration.

“Spoilsport,” she mutters.

He tries to get her to go on the rollercoaster, but she refuses, citing the likelihood of vomiting up brightly coloured ice cream, and the possible theft of Roberto if they leave him unattended.

“Roberto?”

She squeezes one of the teddy bear's paws. “He looks like a Roberto to me.”

“Right,” he says.

“Don't use your Captain America voice on me, Mister,” she says, tapping him on the chest. “I'm not stopping you from going on the ride.”

He laughs. “It's fine, I'd rather be with you.”

She pulls a face. “Ugh, how do you always make everything so sweet and romantic?”

“It's my superpower,” he says.

“You're not kidding,” she mutters. “Come on, let's get lunch.”

The restaurant they go to overlooks the ocean, and Darcy laughs at all the surfers wiping out below them. The food's nice, and the view is great, but there's something wrong, Steve can feel it, it itches at the back of his neck. They're being watched, and not by the few fellow diners.

“Steve, you okay?” Darcy asks.

“Someone's watching us,” he says quietly, “don't turn around.”

Her eyebrows jump up. “Wait, what, who? I feel like I'm in a Bond movie or something.”

“I don't know, but they've been watching us for about five minutes.”

“Dude, that's creepy,” she says, and lifts her eyes to glance over his head. “Oh, shit,” she mutters.

“Do you see who it is?”

She sighs. “Yeah. It's Sitwell.”

“Shit,” he echoes. “If we run now, we might get back to the hotel before they catch us.”

She laughs. He isn't really joking. She tips her chin up. “Hey, boss man.”

“Agent Lewis, Captain,” Sitwell says, sliding into place beside their table. “I see that the rumours are true, then.”

“That this place serves great sea bass? Yes, indeed, sir, it's true,” Darcy says.

Sitwell glares at her and she just smiles brighter. “Fury will want to talk to you two about this elopement at some point, but right now we have a more pressing problem.” He looks at Steve. “We have a situation.”

“Yeah?” he says.

“We have a jet waiting on the roof to take you to Boca Caliente.”

“Never heard of it,” Steve says, and Sitwell's mouth thins out.

“It's an island in the Caribbean,” Darcy says, “what's happened?”

“AIM are attempting to overthrow the government, and we have US citizens out there.”

“AIM?” he asks. 

“They're an offshoot of HYDRA.”

Steve's heart sinks. “I thought HYDRA was wiped out seventy years ago.”

“There's always been an underground presence, but they've got... louder, since your reappearance.”

“Great. And this is the first time you've decided to mention it to me?” Steve asks. Darcy frowns at him a little, and he knows he's acting a little overly aggressive about this, but goddamnit, can't he get any peace at all?

“It was need-to-know,” Sitwell says, and Steve's pretty sure those are his three most hated words. “Captain, we're drawing some attention, shall we move this conversation somewhere else?”

He sighs, and Darcy pulls a sympathetic face. “Fine,” he murmurs, “S.H.I.E.L.D.'s picking up the bill for our food, though.”

-

Despite feeling stubborn and sullen about their honeymoon being interrupted (and their _real_ honeymoon hasn't even started yet), and angry at S.H.I.E.L.D. for a myriad of things, like them keeping things from him and using him as their attack dog, he realises that he can't shirk this responsibility, and reluctantly goes up to the roof with the agents. If HYDRA, or offshoots of it, really are trying to re-establish themselves, then he has to deal with that. He can't let innocent people suffer because he didn't do a good enough job, all those years ago.

“How are you gonna get home?” he asks Darcy, resting his hands on her waist.

“I'm going to hitch a ride back to Brooklyn with my lovely boss, of course,” she says.

“Okay,” he says, holding her tighter. He kind of wants her to tell him not to go – if she told him not to go, he wouldn't, he'd turn around right now and go back to the pier and play more stupid games and eat more unhealthy food. But she isn't going to tell him not to go, because she's a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and she doesn't do stuff like that.

He fishes his rings out of his pocket, where he's been keeping them all day, and places them carefully in her palm. “Look after these for me,” he says.

“Sure,” she says, pressing her lips together for a moment before she smiles. “Ugh, let's not get all maudlin,” she says, and kisses him. “We're going to see each other in a couple of days, maybe less, since you _are_ the world's leading superhero.”

“Don't say that to Tony,” he says, and kisses her again.

Natasha and Clint are in the jet when he gets in, Natasha flying the thing and Clint loitering, and they exchange some words, but not much else.

They meet up with Tony over the Gulf of Mexico, with Bruce in tow (literally: he flies up to meet the jet in his suit, holding Bruce under the arms), and he boards the jet with a shit-eating grin.

“Hey, party people!” he says.

“I think I'm going to puke,” Bruce murmurs.

Clint lifts his chin in greeting, and Steve mumbles a hello, halfway through reading S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intel on this AIM organisation.

“Cool, cool,” Tony says, pulling off his helmet. “Sooo, how was the honeymoon?”

He sighs and drops the tablet to his lap. “Great, until Sitwell crashed it.”

“Tell me about it,” Tony says with a laugh. Steve glares at him. “Jesus, don't start with your grumpy face again. I've got things to do too, you know! Companies to take over hostilely, wine to drink, galas to attend...”

“Uh huh,” Steve says. 

Bruce flops down on the bench next to him, and pulls a sympathetic face. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“It's fine,” Steve says, and Bruce smiles like he knows it isn't.

“Does S.H.I.E.L.D. even have jurisdiction in this place?” Tony asks.

“We've got jurisdiction over anything designated as criminal activity that requires... extraordinary measures,” Clint says.

“So... you're like the Mounties? You always get your man?”

Clint shrugs. “Sure.”

“Do you guys give your agents horses, then? Because if so, I'm sold.”

Steve leans his head back. This is going to be a long ride.

-

In hindsight, he _wishes_ that it had been a long flight. The fighting on the island is visible from a hundred of miles away and they're dropped right into the middle of it. The streets are like a war zone, and there's the scent of blood and burning in the air that drags his nightmares to the forefront of his mind.

He tries to keep the goal in mind: nearly forty US citizens, journalists, aid workers, and people just unfortunate enough to vacation on an island days before whackjob Neo-Nazis decided to invade. S.H.I.E.L.D. has a transport plane on standby on a nearby island, and he knows he doesn't have long to get these people together and off the island, but he's not sure his conscience will allow him to just leave this place to its fate once the civilians have been rescued.

He sends Tony up into the sky to scan for life signs, Haweye onto rooftops to pick off AIM soldiers, Hulk to go up against whatever gets through the blockades they've set up, and Natasha to come with him and find all the hidden places on the island and get people to safety.

It's gruelling, endless work, stretching long into the night and pinning them in little enclaves, because AIM have the distinct upper hand on them at night, and he tasks Tony with finding as many people as he can under the cover of darkness. Steve doesn't need the sleep, but edging on ten hours since he's last eaten, and there are tremors in his hands that he's having trouble controlling.

“Captain,” Natasha says, hunkered down next to him in the ruin of a building they've taken cover in. He starts, unaware of how badly he'd been spacing out. She pushes an energy bar into his hands. “Eat this.”

He blinks at it a couple of times, then tears into it. “You brought food with you?”

“I've been on missions like this before,” she says. “Worse than this. It's important to eat. Especially for you. Here, take some for later.” She drops a handful of them into his lap, and he's feel a little like a kid being told off, but he's grateful.

“Thanks,” he says, and takes a bite.

“I think I know where AIM's base of operation is,” she says after a minute's silence, pulling a tablet out of her bag. “I plotted in the pictures Stark's been taking onto the map, and there seems to be an awful lot of activity right around here.” She taps her finger on an area that's lit up bright red with heat signatures.

He scratches at the beginnings of stubble on his chin, revelling in the freedom of not having his cowl on for a little while. “Are you suggesting that we try to infiltrate AIM headquarters?”

She shakes her head. “No. I'm suggesting that we just blow it to hell. That would put a dent in their plans.”

He takes the tablet off her. “Yes, it would.”

They spend the rest of the night planning how to get into the base, and where to set the charges (of which Natasha has about _three dozen_ in her bag) based on Tony's infrared pictures of the island. Steve sure hopes these are accurate, because this could end up as a suicide mission if they're not careful. An unsanctioned one, at that, and that should give him pause, but he can't bring himself to care.

The entire next day is taken up by fighting and getting people to safety, and they get the last of the civilians out just as the sun is beginning to set. Hulk shrinks back down into Bruce, who promptly collapses after two straight days of somehow remaining that way. 

“Okay, kids, grab any souvenirs you want, we've got a flight to catch,” Tony calls, hovering about twelve feet in the air, keeping an eye on the surrounding area.

“Iron Man, Hawkeye, take Bruce back to the jet and make sure all the civilians get on the plane. If you don't hear from me and Widow in an hour, leave.”

Clint nods and crouches down to pull Bruce over his shoulder and set off.

“Stevie,” Tony says, landing in front of him. “What are you going to do?”

“Go with Hawkeye,” he says, pointing at Clint's retreating back.

Tony looks over his shoulder lazily, then back. “Uh huh. What are you and Widow doing?”

Steve glances at Natasha and she shrugs. “We don't have long, Cap,” she says.

He turns back to Tony. “We going to blow up the AIM base.”

“Pretty sure that's not what we're here for,” Tony says.

“It's not your concern,” Steve says, “go with Hawkeye, that's an order.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “'Do as I say, not as I do'? Where's that good little soldier we all know and hate?”

Steve's stomach growls. He feels hot and sticky and hungry and _dirty_ , and absolutely at the end of his patience with everything. He pulls his cowl off and runs his fingers through his damp hair.

“Maybe I'm not a soldier any more,” he says. “Don't try to stop me.”

“If you think I'm gonna stop you try to take out a _terrorist_ organisation, then you don't know me at all. As it happens, I was going to try something myself. I'm coming with you.”

Steve rubs a hand over his face, grimacing at how he just rubs dirt and grease deeper into his skin. “Fine.”

“Now that you've dealt with that heart to heart,” Natasha drawls, “let's talk about the plan.”

It isn't much of a plan, really, it's just brute force and attempting to choose low traffic, high damage targets in the AIM complex. They spread out, Tony taking to the air and Steve and Natasha taking either side. He manages to get into the complex with considerably less difficulty than he'd thought – the AIM agents are numerous, but poorly trained, and he barrels through a dozen of them on his way in.

With Tony's added help, Steve has a better picture of where to set the charges. He find several weapons lockers, a couple of labs, and what looks like a room full of files – there's probably stuff in there that would be invaluable to S.H.I.E.L.D, but Steve has a judgement call to make, and he sets the charge before taking off down the hall. The charges are on a five minute delay, which gives him that long to get clear of the building.

A gunshot catches him in the shoulder, propelling him forward a couple of steps, and another ricochets off the wall near him. He spins around, throws his shield in an arc, takes out two of his pursuers, and catches it again before taking off.

He almost makes it out before the first explosion, the exit is in sight, just a couple of feet away, but the first blast catches him and lifts him off his feet. He rolls with it, skidding along the ground on his back and protecting his face as debris rains down on him. The heat of it envelops him for a moment, and he's glad for his suit, because he can feel the exposed skin on his face begin to burn under the intensity.

He picks himself up a moment later, hearing how the building creaks ominously, and takes off at a dead run.

“Widow!” he yells into his earpiece as he gets past confused and panicked agents. It takes them a second, but they notice him and begin to pursue.

“Clear!” she replies.

“I'm good, too!” Tony cuts in, and Steve looks up briefly to see Tony picking agents off from the air.

It takes Steve maybe ten minutes to cover the distance from the base to the jet, Tony bringing up the rear with, Steve notes after a couple of minutes, Natasha in his arms.

“Never mention this,” she says over the radio.

He skids to a halt in the clearing that the jet is set down in, and Tony joins him after a second, putting down a nauseated looking Natasha, who scrambles for the cockpit. “Everyone in!” she yells.

Tony stares at him. “Are you okay?”

“What?”

Tony reaches out a gloved hand and points at Steve's middle. Steve looks down, and finds that there's a sharp, curved piece of metal sticking out of his side. He hadn't even noticed. He pulls it out and holds it up for a moment to look at it. Tony looks a little nauseated too, now.

“I'm fine,” he says, throwing it aside.

“Guys!” Clint shouts, and they run to the jet as there's another explosion in the distance.

Bruce is passed out cold inside, stretched out on a bench with a blanket over him and balled up jacket under his head. Clint disappears into the cockpit with Natasha, and Tony looks out of the window as she takes the jet up. It shudders a little on its ascent, and Steve feels suddenly thrown off balance. He stumbles a little, and sits down heavily on the bench opposite Bruce, glad that Tony isn't looking his way.

“It's a beautiful island,” Tony comments. “Shame about the Neo-Nazis.”

“They do tend to throw a spanner in the works,” Steve murmurs. He feels a little sick all of a sudden, but he guesses that's mostly exertion and lack of food. It's been years since he's had to go without food for any significant period of time with his ramped up metabolism. They hauled a ton of rations around with them in the war, which did the job, even if they tasted like crap.

Tony laughs and comes over to sit a little down from Bruce. “He looks so innocent asleep, you'd never know he's a one man wrecking crew.”

Steve forces a chuckle. “Yeah...”

Thankfully, Tony doesn't talk too much after that, because Steve's stomach is starting to hurt like hell, and he feels sick and tired. He closes his eyes and wraps his arms around himself, making an effort to breath through his nose, which works for... a little while, until the Quinjet hits a patch of turbulence and Steve's stomach rebels even harder. He clamps his hand over his mouth but it doesn't help, and he throws up anyway, all over the floor and Tony's feet.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

Tony grimaces, shaking his leg. “Don't worry about it,” he says, then frowns, looking closer at where Steve threw up. Steve's mostly just eaten energy bars in the last couple of days, so all he brings up is bile. He doesn't remember eating anything red, though.

Tony pulls off his gauntlets and kneels down in front of Steve, avoiding the puddle. “Hey, Steve,” he says, in a tone that Steve's never heard from him before – it's almost gentle, “can you straighten up for a minute?”

“Why?” he asks, keeping his arm where it is, protecting his stomach.

“Just for a minute, okay? Trust me.”

Steve doesn't trust him, but he feels too unwell to argue much more, so he braces both hands on the bench and uncurls as much as he can without crying. Jesus _Christ_ that hurts.

Tony reaches out and starts to tug Steve's suit and undershirt up. Steve scoots back. “What the hell're you doing?”

“Just want to see what abs are supposed to look like. Stay still.” He pulls them up higher and frowns some more. 

Steve looks down. He has some little wounds spread out over his stomach that are still bleeding – he's kind of surprised that they haven't healed over yet. Tony pulls his top back down and smiles thinly.

“As you were, soldier,” he says and gets up. He goes over to Bruce and shakes him awake, which Bruce doesn't seem to appreciate much, but his frown smooths out after Tony's talked for a couple of seconds. His eyes flicker to Steve for a moment, before he pulls himself up, gathers the blanket around himself, and the two of them go over and knock on the cockpit door. Clint pokes his head out and they talk in hushed voices, Tony motioning at Steve a couple of times. Clint's eyes widen a little before he nods and closes the door again.

Tony and Bruce come back over and sit down again, Tony smiling in a way that Steve guesses he thinks is comforting. It's not.

“What's going on?” Steve asks, suddenly out of breath. A shudder passes through him, and he grips the bench harder. Bruce winces.

“I just thought of a bird joke that I had to tell Clint,” Tony says blithely.

Steve sees red. “ _Tell me_ what's going on, Stark!” he snaps. He shouldn't be this angry, he knows, but he can't stop himself. “I'm still the goddamn leader of this te--” A sudden stabbing pain cuts him off and he gasps, curling in on himself even more.

“Okay, okay,” Tony says. “The helicarrier's going to meet us halfway, that's all.”

“Why?” he growls.

Tony grimaces. “Okay, look... I think when you were caught in the explosion you got hit with shrapnel. If it gets into your bloodstream, it could travel up to your heart and shred it. And believe me,” Tony adds, tapping his arc reactor, “I know my shrapnel.”

Well, the stabbing pains in his stomach make sense now, Steve thinks, and grits his teeth as he feels some other probably vital organ get poked.

“Isn't there something you can do?” Steve grinds out, looking at Bruce.

“I can pretty much only treat bacterial infections, I'm sorry,” Bruce says softly.

“But you're not gonna die!” Tony says. “Definitely no dying. If someone as old and unhealthy as me can make it out okay, you're sure to.”

“You're not helping,” Steve says.

“Yeah... Sorry. Do you want to call Darcy? I've got cell reception.”

Steve shakes his head. “I don't want this is be the last thing about me that she remembers.”

“Er...” Tony says, “but don't you think that--”

“ _Look_ ,” Steve interrupts, “if I die then I don't want her final memory of me to be me talking to her while my insides are being ripped apart, and if I don't die, then everything's fine. So drop it. Right now.”

“Okay, I'm sorry.” Tony folds his hands in his lap. “So... how about them Dodgers?”

“Don't talk to me about the Dodgers,” Steve mutters, and tips the corner of his mouth up.

“Oh right, they used to be in Brooklyn, didn't they?”

“Yeah, saw 'em play and every... thing,” Steve says slowly, clutching harder at his side. Adrenaline is a hell of a thing: he didn't feel any of this when he was running to the jet.

“You're a fan of baseball?”

“Yeah. Used to be, anyway, it's not the game that it was in my day,” he says haltingly, and squeezes his eyes shut. “Oh God, I'm gonna die.”

“You're going to be fine,” Bruce says softly.

“Hey, no, you're not going to die. Hey, kid,” Tony says, and Steve forces his eyes open. He's starting to feel really cold all of a sudden. “I have a strict 'no dying' policy, okay?”

He shivers. “'kay.”

“Are you cold?” Tony asks.

“Freezing,” he says.

Tony moves over to sit beside him again, and presses two fingers to Steve's neck. “I think you're going into shock. Bruce?”

Bruce moves over to sit on the other side of him, pressing the back of his hand to Steve's face. “You're really clammy. I think Tony's right.”

“Excellent,” Steve says. It's getting kind of hard to breath now, too.

“That's the spirit,” Tony says, and rests his hand on Steve's back. Steve doesn't bother pushing him away.

“How'd you know all this st-stuff?” he asks.

“Oh, Pepper made me do some hardcore first aid classes after I almost died for the second time.”

“W-when the r-r--” He sets his jaw and forces the words out. “ _Reactor_ was p-poisoning you?”

“Yup. Someone's been reading my file, I see.”

“Read ev-everyone's. Gotta-- gotta know who I'm working with.”

“True enough,” Tony says.

Steve tries to blink away his blurring vision. “H-how much longer?”

“At the speed that we're going, and the helicarrier at its maximum speed, about an hour and forty five minutes to two hours.”

“Sounds like one of those... those math problems,” he stammers.

“I was awesome at those,” Tony says, grinning.

“I-I bet.”

After another couple of minutes, Clint comes back out of the cockpit, sits down across from them, and starts telling them ridiculous and probably made up stories about the circus. Steve's pretty sure he's going in and out of consciousness, because time passes very strangely. The shock seems to be coming and going, too, which almost makes it worse, because every time he starts to feel better, he knows it isn't going to last. He thinks he'd prefer steady pain to this.

Someone puts their hand to his forehead. He opens his eyes slowly.

“Natasha?” he says. He glances at the others; Tony, Bruce, and Clint haven't moved from their positions. “Who's flying this boat?”

“Autopilot,” she says, and pets his hair gently. He can almost pretend it's Darcy. “How are you feeling?”

“Been better,” he says.

“Yeah, I guessed,” she says. “We're about thirty minutes out. Fury's got the doctors on standby.”

“Okay,” he says. It feels like the pain is moving higher, which probably isn't a good thing. He doesn't miss the look that passes between the others.

“So, tell us about your wedding, Captain,” Natasha says. “Me and Clint are still a little pissed that we weren't invited, to be honest. It's not like we would have lowered the tone any worse than Tony.”

“Hey...” Tony murmurs, and smiles at Steve.

The jet and the helicarrier meet ahead of schedule, twenty five minutes later, and Natasha docks it as gently as she can, but the shaking still makes Steve feel like he's dying even more, and Tony and Bruce have to hold onto his shoulders until they've fully landed and Natasha's shut the power off.

There are medics waiting outside with a stretcher, and Tony and Bruce help him onto it and then follow the medics as they wheel it down the hallway, while Natasha and Clint go to debrief with Sitwell.

“Go with Natasha and Clint,” Steve tells them.

“Shut up,” Tony replies, and slips into the elevator behind the medics.

It's horrible in the x-ray room – the nurses have to cut everything off him, leaving him almost naked with Tony and Bruce – but especially Tony – standing to the side of him, and the worst thing about it all is that Tony doesn't say a _thing_. He doesn't make one snide or inappropriate comment, and Steve knows that that can only mean that things are really, really bad. The doctor x-rays him and pulls worried faces, and then moves off to have a whispered conversation with the nurses, leaving Steve curled up on his side on the stretcher with a sheet pulled up to his chest. His breathing ratchets up to a wheeze as he waits, panic beginning to overwhelm him.

“Hey!” Tony yells at the doctor. “Are you going to tell us what's going on or do I have to call my lawyer?”

The doctor gives him a bored look. “My apologies, Mr Stark,” he says as he walks back over. “Captain, we are going to have to operate immediately to remove the shrapnel in your stomach.”

“Okay,” he says quietly.

“Now wait a minute,” Tony says, “I've seen how you guys 'operate' on him. He _is_ going to be unconscious for this, right?”

Steve hadn't even _thought_ about that. He's never had major surgery since getting the serum – or before it, for that matter. The idea of that in itself terrifies him – the possibility that he might have to be _conscious_ for it makes him want to cry. Bruce lays a hand on his arm.

“We've been working on an experimental anaesthetic,” the doctor says. “It should keep him unconscious for long enough.”

“'Should'?” Tony repeats.

“It's never been tested before, but we're hopeful.”

“Uh huh,” Tony mutters.

“Tony,” Bruce admonishes quietly.

“Just get on with it,” Steve groans.

Tony glances down at him, and nods. “Sorry, Rogers.”

They wheel him to the operating room, but won't let Tony and Bruce go any further, covered as they are in filth. Bruce smiles awkwardly and Tony pulls a face at the nurses and squeezes Steve's arm. “I'm going to be here when you wake up, okay?”

“Great,” Steve mutters. Tony laughs hollowly and salutes him as the nurse pushes him through the swinging doors. Everything in the operating room happens in a flurry: they move him onto a bed, stick needles into his arms, fit a mouthpiece over his face, and talk in hurried voices that begin to lengthen out and slur, the words getting all jumbled up. Someone is asking him something, but he doesn't understand the question, and a moment later everything just blinks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a terrible place to end a chapter, and I feel terrible. I'm sorry!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, guys, this is last, longer than normal, chapter! I'm not really sure why this fluffy/angsty fic got so long, but I'm kind of overwhelmed by all the lovely reviews and messages I've been getting, so... please enjoy!

There's someone's hand in his hair, tracing patterns, twisting the limp strands gently. 

“Better not be you, Tony,” he mumbles, every part of him feeling heavy, from his toes to his eyelids. It's hard to even move his lips enough to be coherent.

Someone sobs. Probably not Tony, then, he thinks vaguely. He tries his best to open his eyes to slits, against the bright lights of wherever he is.

“He's okay,” Tony says with a laugh in his voice.

A hand presses to Steve's cheek and he opens his eyes wider to see Darcy's red, blotchy face. Wow, she's really been crying. “Hey, don't cry,” he mumbles, trying to push himself up onto an elbow. Whoo _boy_ that hurts.

“Lie your ass _down_ ,” Darcy orders, and he complies happily.

He feels sleepy and doped up, like how he used to feel when Bucky got him marijuana, swearing up and down that it would help his asthma, and they'd sit on the floor of their one room apartment and smoke and giggle about girls. It's a nice memory. He smiles lazily and lifts his hand to his cheek to cover hers. “Hey, Darce.”

“Steve,” she says, with a slight catch in her voice, and leans forward to kiss him. Her cheeks feel wet against his, and her locket rests against his chest.

He curls his fingers into hers, and presses his other hand to the locket, close to his heart. “'m sorry,” he whispers.

She sniffs and kisses his top lip. “We'll talk about that later.”

“You're going to be fine, by the way,” Tony adds, moving into Steve's line of vision above Darcy's head. He's not wearing his armour any more, just that tight black undersuit of his. “The surgeon got all the metal out, and apparently with your enhancements, all your sliced up stomach muscles should be healed in a couple of days. You _asshole_.”

Steve chuckles. He's starting to feel more with it already. “Thanks.” Darcy's still leaning over him, and seems content to stay where she is, which he has no arguments with. 

Tony smiles. “Well, I've got my own irate significant other to get back to, so I'll be taking off now. Sorry about your honeymoon.” He doesn't move for a moment, though, and Steve waves his hand vaguely.

“Get out,” he says good-naturedly.

Tony rolls his eyes. “See you later.”

Darcy sits up a little after Tony leaves, fresh tears on her face.

Steve wipes a thumb under her eyes. “You never cry,” he murmurs.

“I do when my dumbass new husband almost dies and doesn't bother to give me a heads up about it.”

He twists the chain of the locket between his fingers, studying the swirly patterns on the oval pendant. “I didn't want this to be the thing you remembered when you thought about me,” he mumbles.

“Yeah, Tony said something stupid like that,” she says, stroking his hair back from his face – he can feel how greasy and disgusting it is under her fingers.

He looks up at her. “He called you?”

She nods. “The minute you went into surgery.”

Of course he did. “How long was I in surgery for?”

“Six hours. They had to keep... cutting you back open because your... your...” She swallows heavily. “Your body kept healing around the metal.” She starts crying again in earnest, and he wraps his hand around the back of her neck and holds her against him.

“I'm so sorry,” he says, “I am so, so sorry.”

She snuffles against his collarbone and lifts her head. “On the plus side, I got a hug from Tony Stark.”

“Should I be jealous?”

“Not as long as you don't pull any more dumbass moves like this _ever again_.”

He swallows, and tangles their fingers together. “I promise. God, I _promise_.”

“Okay,” she says, and kisses him on the cheek. “This bed looks pretty comfy, mind sharing it with me?”

-

He leaves a day later. The doctor wants to keep him there for a couple of days, but the helicarrier isn't really set up for comfort, the grey walls are depressing as hell, and Darcy refuses to leave but is clearly uncomfortable on the hard bed and in the sparse room they've got him in. He's healing up as quick as they said he would, anyway, so there's no reason to stay. The team stops by just before he leaves, to see how he's doing, and Darcy seems to hit it off pretty well with Clint.

A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent drives them home in the late afternoon and helps Darcy get him inside, since he's still aching something awful and bending forward feels like someone's trying to cut his stomach open with a blunt knife. Mrs Rossi peers out of her door when they get into the corridor, and he raises his hand to her as they pass.

The agent beats a hasty retreat under Darcy's gaze, and Steve rubs at his unshaven chin. He really needs a wash, his skin feels sticky and covered in dirt.

“I'm gonna have a shower,” he says.

“Okay, need any help?”

He shakes his head. This feels all too familiar. “I'm fine.”

“What about the bandage?”

“What?”

She tugs his t-shirt up to reveal the large rectangular bandage stuck to his abdomen. “This'll get gross if it gets wet.”

“Oh.” He has to have a shower, he _has to_. His skin is starting to itch even more, and he just feels _disgusting_. “I've gotta wash, what am I going to do?”

“I could sponge you down,” she suggests, with none of the flirty humour that it should have.

“No, I want a shower, I really--” He presses his lips together. It's ridiculous to start having a meltdown over a _shower_ , for Christ's sake.

Darcy chews on her lip for a moment, before waving her finger at him. “Hang on, I have an idea.”

She goes into the kitchen for a moment, and returns with a roll of saran wrap. “It's going to look dumb, but it'll do the job,” she says.

He pulls his t-shirt off and lets her wrap the saran wrap three times around his middle and tuck the ends in. “Thanks,” he says, and kisses her on the forehead.

He stays in the shower for ages – for him, at least – twenty-five minutes, and he scrubs himself down twice, watching the almost hypnotic swirl of dirt down the drain, working soap into his hair until it feels squeaky and brittle. He bows his head and lets hot water hammer down on the back of his hair, taking in deep, controlled breaths. He's okay, he tells himself, he's fine, he's _safe_ ; he made it home this time.

He steps out from under the spray when it starts to go cold, takes a deep gulp of air, and gets out of the shower, moving over to the basin to shave. His face has gone bright from the heat and he looks wrung out and exhausted. He shaves off the two days growth quickly – he barely grows facial hair at all so it only takes a couple of swipes, then taps the razor on the edge of the sink and picks up his toothbrush. It feels like there's a layer of grime on his teeth, and he brushes harder than he normally would, until his gums are sore. His wound starts to itch something awful as he finishes up, wiping his palms and face dry, removing the saran wrap and dressing in the pile of clothes that Darcy has left for him. Itching is good, though, because that means it's healing up and at least it doesn't hurt any more. He pulls on the sweatshirt and pants and steps back out into the living room in time to hear Darcy muttering to herself.

“You have got to be fucking _kidding_ me,” she says, staring at the TV.

“Darcy?”

Darcy looks up at him, smiles awkwardly, and quickly shuts it off.

“Darcy?” he says again.

“It's nothing,” she says, smiling a little too widely.

“What was on the TV?”

She looks at him and sighs. “It's-- shit,” she mutters and switches the TV back on. “Just watch.”

He comes around to beside her and frowns at the grainy footage on the screen. It's dark, but he can make out a car on the road, a girl with long hair, and what looks like a cop with a flashlight. Steve frowns.

“ _Oh, officer, what are you going to do to me?_ ” the girl says with a laugh, and Darcy covers her face with her hand.

“ _Cell phone footage of the arrest of Captain America's girlfriend on drug charges has spread like wildfire on the internet today after being posted to social news site Reddit early this afternoon,_ ” a narrator says. “ _Preliminary investigations into her arrest record suggest that her record was expunged._ ”

Steve's stomach does a weird, angry flip, a spike of adrenaline running through him.

Darcy switches the TV off again and turns to face him, her face all scrunched up and tense. “Look, what happened was that when I was sixteen I was a fucking idiot and I was in the back of a car with some idiot friends of mine and I was drunk, and the cops pulled us over and I had some pot on me and I got arrested and fined and my record _was_ expunged two years later, but only because that was what happened with misdemeanors in California back then, and honestly I'd forgotten about it, but I guess one of those assholes I was riding with filmed it on their phone and decided that now was a good time to fuck with me. And I'm really sorry and I would have told you if I'd remembered.”

She takes a deep breath and Steve frowns even harder. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, you know, maybe you wouldn't have wanted people to think that you're with a felon.”

“Okay,” he says, “number one, it was a misdemeanor and I certainly got into more trouble than that when I was a teenager. In fact, I smoked pot when I was younger--”

“You...” She narrows her eyes and arches an eyebrow. “Wait, that's... that requires explanation.”

He shrugs. “It was for my asthma.”

“They gave people pot for asthma in the thirties?”

“They did a lot of weird things in the thirties,” he says. “But the point is... I don't... I don't give a _fuck_ what people think about us.”

She smiles like she always does when he swears, and he puts his hands on her shoulders. He tries to put a good face on it, but he feels so goddamn _angry_. “The only thing I care about is you. I just... I can't _stand_ the fact that people think it's okay to treat you badly.”

“Oh dude, whatever,” she says, laughing, “I don't care about that.” She leans up on her toes and kisses the side of his neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he says, wrapping his arms around her. “So much.” 

She squeezes him back, sighing contentedly. “I was so scared when Tony called. God, I thought, I thought my heart was just going to burst, or something.”

He smooths a hand over her hair and kisses the top of her head. “I'm so sorry I did that to you.”

“It's not your fault,” she murmurs, but he's not sure that she sounds totally sincere. He lets it pass though, because he just feels so worn out and worn down. She kisses his collarbone, then rests her forehead there for a moment before taking his hand. “Come on, let's get some food in you.”

-

He's not really hungry because they had him on a drip in the helicarrier, but he eats a couple of sandwiches anyway, fields some text messages from Tony ('SUE EVERYONE'), and lets Darcy drag him to bed at ten. Roberto is sitting on his side of the bed, and she says, almost offhandedly but not quite, that she used him as a Steve substitute while Steve was away. Steve's throat closes up and he has to excuse him to the bathroom.

She settles down with an arm across his chest and falls asleep within minutes. It's been a busy couple of days for her.

He, on the other hand, just lies there, staring up at the ceiling, willing sleep that he knows isn't going to come. He slept a lot yesterday, but that was drugged sleep, and he _is_ tired, but he knows it's not going to happen tonight.

After half an hour, he can't take it, not the darkness, or the soft bed, or Darcy's steady snoring. He rolls to the side as gently as he can, Darcy's arm slipping from his chest, and swings himself up, and then out of bed.

He searches for things to distract himself with. He cleans the stack of dishes in the kitchen, with days old food on them, and the grime on the bathtub, and the mould on the shower curtain. He checks his wounds, peeling back the corner of the bandage: the only evidence of the last few days is a faint pink line and a row of dissolveable stitches. He rips it off as fast as he can, grimacing, and throws it into the trash can. What the world wouldn't give for some of the blood on that white square. He eats a whole loaf of bread and half a thing of butter, then gags over the sink but doesn't throw up. He turns the TV back on and watches a couple of minutes of some idiot dissecting 'Captain America's worrying relationship with a drug addict wild child' before he shuts it off in disgust.

And he paces. He paces up and down and up and down the living room, walks into the bedroom to see if Darcy is awake, and then starts the process all over again. What his limbs really ache to do is _run_ , just pull on his shoes and run as fast and as far as he can. Only... the idea of going outside makes him want to crumple up on the floor a little.

He passes two hours like this, walking in and out of rooms, picking up and moving things around, and checking and checking and checking to see if Darcy's woken up yet. Everything starts to boil down to that one thing: _is Darcy awake why isn't she awake when will she wake up_. The thought that she might not wake up until it's light out, another three hours at least, sends a jolt of panic through him that's difficult to shake off. 

She looks peaceful, every time he checks. She's sleeping on her stomach, her arm stretched out across his side, face mashed into the edge of a pillow. He can't wake her up.

He can't wake her up, it's selfish.

He can't he can't he can't. 

His twentieth visit to the bedroom, he edges closer to the bed. 

“Darcy,” he says quietly.

She snores happily.

“Darcy, wake up,” he says a little louder.

She stirs for a moment, then settles again. He stumbles to sit down on the bed. “Darcy, wake up, please wake up, _please_.” His voice peters out as he feels his throat close up. He shakes her arm instead.

“Uhn?” she murmurs, rolling away, opening one eye to look at the clock. “Where's the fire, dude?”

He makes the most pathetic whining sound, and her attention snaps to him.

“What the fuck,” she mumbles, scrambling to sit up and look at him. “What's wrong? Steve? Steve?”

He waves his hands and shakes his head desperately. “Can't... I can't...”

“You can't breathe?” she says. “Are you choking, is it the shrapnel – oh God, I thought they got it all. Steve? Steve?”

He shakes his head again and tips forward to try and wrap himself around her as best he can. Which isn't very good at all; if he wasn't so goddamn _fucking_ overgrown...

“Oh my God,” she murmurs, arms flailing for a moment before she puts them around him. “Okay, uh, okay, you're having a panic attack. God, I hope this is just a panic attack. Steve, what's wrong?”

He shakes his head against the crook of her neck. He doesn't know what's wrong with him; something is _really_ wrong with him, but he doesn't know what.

“Okay,” she says quietly, “that's okay. Lie down.” She tugs at him until they're rearranged lying down, with his head on her chest and her arm around his back. She pulls the blanket around him, too, pulling it tight across his shoulders. “How's the breathing going?”

“Better,” he manages. His heart is going like a jack hammer in his chest, but he feels safer, and his lungs allow him to fill them a little more.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay. Jesus, um. Is this about the news, or...?”

“I don't know,” he says, and horrifyingly something like a sob follows. “I-I... I almost _died_ , Darcy. I mean, I _really_ almost died this time, it... felt like dying, it's never felt like that before.” He takes a breath. “And... I don't wanna die. Everyone I know is dead--” Definitely a sob that time. “I'm never gonna see Bucky again, and Peggy died before I got to see her one last time. I don't know wanna die, and I don't wanna be Captain America, and I don't wanna lose you.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up,” she says. “Why would you lose me? I'm not going anywhere.”

He shakes his head wordlessly.

“Steve...” she says, and she sounds pained. “Okay, look, uh... tell me about Bucky?”

“I don't wanna talk about Bucky.”

“You sure about that?”

He frowns. The grief is still so raw, when he lets it be, when he passes old haunts, or sees a movie on TV that Bucky really liked. He's not sure he can even get the words out. But Darcy's asking, and he owes her _something_ , he doesn't want to keep this piece of his life secret from her. He's never _meant_ to keep anything secret from her.

He presses his face into her chest and takes a couple of deep breaths. “Buck was... everything I wanted to be. He was brave and funny and good-looking and strong, and he looked after me even when I didn't want him to. He was the only family I had after Ma died. I'd've done anything for him, but when it mattered, I failed.”

She sighs and runs her fingers through his hair. “And Peggy?”

“She was beautiful.” He pauses, tightening his fingers on her waist. 

Darcy huffs a quiet laugh. “Four am amnesty,” she says, “tell me.”

“Okay...” He closes his eyes and remembers her face for moment, and his chest starts to feel tight again. “She was the first person to ever look at me and see a man instead of a sickly child. I wasn't in love with her, but God, I could have been. S.H.I.E.L.D. gave me her number in London, but by the time I manned up, she was already gone. If I wasn't such a coward, I could've talked to her one last time.”

“Oh, Steve...” Darcy sighs, running her fingers through his hair. “You know none of this is your fault, right?”

“Feels like it is,” he mumbles.

“Well, jeez, Steve, don't trust your _feelings_. That's a rookie mistake.”

He snorts something like a laugh into her chest.

“Will you...” Her hand stills in his hair. “Will you tell me about your nightmares?”

He draws in a sharp breath and holds it.

“Please?” she adds, and he can feel her tip her head down to look at him. “You've gotta... you've gotta talk to someone about this stuff, Steve.”

“Okay,” he whispers. “I dream about... the war. It all seems so real while it's happening. I can smell the gun fire, and hear the screams, and taste the... the bile in my throat, and I'm always alone, I'm always the last one standing and I'm scared. I'm terrified.”

Her hand starts moving again, and he can feel her chest inflate with a deep breath underneath his cheek. 

“And...” he continues, “I dream about what happened in December, with Blonsky, and I'm so afraid that I can't think, I can barely _move_ , and I try to hide but he rips through everything and the only thing that goes through my mind is: I'm never going to see Darcy again.”

“Oh, Steve,” she says again, cuddling him closer. “I wish you'd told me all of this earlier.”

“Didn't want to worry you,” he murmurs. God, he is truly _exhausted_. His eyelids slide shut of their own accord.

“Next time, _worry me_ ,” she says.

“Okay,” he mumbles, “promise.”

-

He wakes up hugging Roberto. He lets his eyes flicker open slowly, the bedroom swimming into focus. The clock radio tells him it's twelve thirty in the afternoon. 

“Huh,” he mutters, pushing himself up. His muscles feel sore and compressed, and there's still phantom pain lingering around his wound; he presses his hand to his stomach to check, but the skin is still smoothly healed, like he knew it would be.

Darcy's already up, which isn't very surprising considering the time. He frowns at the clock and runs his fingers through his hair; he never gets up this late, even when he tries to sleep in he doesn't get much past nine thirty.

He stretches his arms over his head and walks into the living room, where Darcy is sitting on the couch, looking very intently at something on her laptop.

“Hey,” he says softly.

She starts a little, looking up at him. “Hey!” She closes the laptop a little guiltily and smiles awkwardly as he remains standing. “Well, sit down, doofus.”

He laughs and sits down next to her. “Hey,” he says again, squeezing the edge of the couch cushion in his hands.

“Hungry?”

He nods.

She pats him on the knee and kisses his cheek. “I'll make you some toast.”

She leaves him alone in the living room for a few minutes. He looks at the TV remote and thinks about turning it on, finding out what the damage is today, but something tells him that Darcy won't be happy if he does; the word 'wallowing' comes to mind.

She comes back with a plate stacked high with buttered toast and settles down beside him. He takes it gratefully and gets through a couple of pieces before she turns her gaze on him. He glances at her out of the corner of his eye and wipes crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You know what I'm going to say,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“We really need to talk.”

“Yeah...” he repeats, looking down at his plate.

She makes an irritated sound. “Guess I'll start.” She reaches over and takes his hand. “Did you mean what you said last night, about not wanting to be Captain America?”

“I don't know. Maybe?”

“Okay.” She drums her fingers against his hand. “And what happened with Ross and Blonsky, is that why?”

“Some of it, I guess?” He frowns. “Um. General Ross isn't being charged with anything. In fact, he's back on active duty. I just... I don't think I believe in the system any more. There's a... there's a lot I don't believe in any more. It's--” He swallows. “--difficult to get my head around, sometimes.”

“Yeah, I get that.” She chews on the inside of her mouth for a moment. “Okay, there's something I want to show you, and I hope you don't get angry at me.”

He frowns. “Why would I get angry at you?”

She picks up her laptop and opens the lid. “I read the field report from the Blonsky mission this morning.”

“You've got access to those?”

“Pepper does. Okay, look.” She turns the computer towards him and taps the screen. “This is what Widow wrote. Read this part.”

He leans in and scans the paragraph: _Captain America parachuted in from the quinjet and drew Blonsky's attention away Hulk. He retreated behind a collapsed building while Iron Man and I checked on Hulk. Hulk sustained only minor injuries from the assault. Blonsky pursued Captain America, demolishing what was left of the building. Captain America fought as best he could until Blonsky got his shield from him and proceeded to beat him into the ground. Hulk launched himself at Blonsky and Iron Man got the Captain to safety. Captain America sustained serious injuries but retrieved his shield and returned to the fight moments later._

Darcy turns the laptop back to her when Steve sits back. “Now, I don't know about you, but that doesn't scream 'coward' to me.”

He looks at her. “That's not how I remember it happening.”

“Well, in this case, I think I'm going to take Widow's word over yours. I think your self-perception is a little fucked right now.”

He smiles briefly and looks down at his hands. “Even so. I just... I don't know what's the right thing any more.”

“It's okay not to know.”

“My whole thing is knowing what to do.”

She laughs a little. “Your 'whole thing' is being a good person. Good people have crises of conscience all the time. Which is why I've never had one.”

“Darcy,” he says, frowning, and she bumps him with her shoulder.

“See, that's how it feels when someone's randomly down on themselves.”

“Oh.” He looks back down at his hands for a moment, then up at her with a frown. “What if I _don't_ want to be Captain America any more?”

“I saw a help wanted sign up at the sushi place?” He rolls his eyes and she grins. “But seriously, if you want to, like, become a nomad or something, that's okay with me.”

“Let's not go that far...” he says, and takes her hand again, lacing their fingers together.

“Steve,” she says, and her voice has a serious tone to it that he's almost never heard from her. “How long have you been feeling like this?”

“Like what?” he hedges.

“Like... like _this_. Like you'd prefer to slope off and die alone than call your goddamn _wife_ ,” she says, her voice going high-pitched.

He winces. “You're mad at me.”

“I'm...” She presses her lips together. “I'm... yeah, you know what? I am mad at you. I'm angry and I'm hurt that you've been keeping stuff from me, and I'm fucking pissed that I have to feel all these negative feelings about you. I was so scared when Tony told me what was going on. I thought, what if he dies on the table, what if I don't get to say goodbye?” She swallows and her eyes look red-rimmed.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “I'm so sorry. I just... I didn't want to say goodbye to another person that I love. Talking to Peggy that last time felt like... my heart was being ripped out.”

She bites her lip and reaches up to run her thumb along his jaw.

“I didn't mean to hide anything from you,” he continues. “I just... I feel good most of the time, I really do, but sometimes it seems like everything is going to topple down on top of me, and I don't know how to stop feeling so overwhelmed by life. It shouldn't be this hard. And sometimes it seems like the happier I get, the worse my nightmares get, and I don't know why.”

She nods. “Survivor's guilt? PTSD?”

He snorts. “I don't need any more guilt, I'm already _Catholic_.”

She laughs a little, but the humour doesn't much reach her eyes.

“I guess maybe...” He looks at his hands for a moment. “I guess now that we're married, it's really obvious that I don't... have anyone except you.” He rubs at his nose and sniffs. “I'm so happy now, with you, but I just wish I still had my ma. And my dad. And Bucky. I wish I had a family, I wish I wasn't so... adrift.”

Darcy curls her hands around his. “I know you do. But you have got a family now. You've got me, and my parents – and I'll tell you what, if you let him, my dad will _happily_ call you son and take you to ball games. And we've got friends, right? We've got Jane, and Tony, and Pepper, and Bruce, and that crazy old bat next door, even.”

“I guess...”

“But mostly you've got me,” she says. “You have got me like a really chronic, untreatable STD.”

He laughs, and she reaches up to kiss his forehead. “You and me are a family now,” she says. “Shit, we were one from like the moment we made out on my couch for the first time.”

“Okay,” he says, his chest expanding with relief, and tips his head down as she strokes his hair.

“And... I think you should see a counsellor,” she adds.

He looks up at her. “Do I have to?”

She frowns. “It's not like I'm going to make you, but there's only so much I can do with my Psychology 101 background. Is there a reason you don't want to?”

He shrugs. “I... I know everything's changed, but... when I was a kid, doctors told me that my asthma was all in my head. They blamed Ma for not raising me right – how could she without a man? – and they told me that there was something wrong with my mind, that I was making myself sick.”

“Jesus,” she says.

“I know that wasn't true, and that it's not like that now, but... going to the shrink when I was a kid meant you were really nuts, it meant you got locked up and analysed.”

“Jesus,” she repeats, “I didn't know that, I'm sorry.”

“It's not your fault, and I know I need to... do something. I don't want to be a burden on you, Darce,” he says quietly.

“Is that what you think?” Darcy asks. He lifts his shoulders. “Well, you're _not_.”

He smiles and looks down at his hands again. 

“Maybe it'd help if you had something else to do in the day,” she adds. “Except wait for evil to strike, you know?”

“Probably, but what would I do? I can't exactly go get a job at Starbucks, can I?”

“What about school? You said you wanted to go back a couple of months ago.”

“Yeah...” Honestly, he'd mostly said that because he didn't want her lawyer father and professor mother to think he was uneducated. It wasn't a lie, but it certainly wasn't something he really thought was on the cards for him. “I don't know, maybe. What would I study though?”

“Whatever you wanted to? I dunno, art, lit, poli sci, film studies, science, language classes? Endless possibilities.”

He pulls a face. “I don't want to study science.”

She smiles. “You don't have to study science.”

“Well... maybe.” He shrugs, and reaches over to take her hand. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, what is it?”

He takes a deep breath. “Do you regret marrying me?”

Her eyebrows go high. “What?”

He drops his gaze. “Everyone's just treating you so badly, like... like our relationship is public property, and it makes me so _angry_ , but I don't know what to do about it. I feel like... sometimes... that you're gonna end up hating me for all of this.”

She goes kind of bug-eyed, which makes him smile a little, despite everything. “You think I'm going to _hate you_? You? Steven Grant 'Disney Prince' Rogers?”

He squirms a bit with embarrassment. “Yes,” he mutters.

“Dude,” she says, “I don't think I should even dignify that with a response. But I will.” She claps her hands over his cheeks. “I don't think I'm even _physically capable_ of hating you.”

“But doesn't it upset you, all the stuff that they're saying about you?”

“I mean, yeah, but...” She shrugs, sliding her hands down to his shoulders. “I knew it was going happen. I didn't know some asshole mouth breather would pull cell phone footage out of his ass, but I knew something would happen.”

“And that's okay with you?”

“For you, it is,” she says, and wrinkles up her nose as she laughs. “So lame...” she murmurs, and he feels a helpless smile pull at his mouth.

“Is there anything that you regret?” she asks.

He starts. “No! No, not a thing.”

“Then we're just two people with no regrets.” She sighs and cups his cheek. “You'll be okay, Steve. We'll... work it out.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” She fiddles with his hair for a moment, then sits up straighter. “Oh! I almost forgot!”

“What?” he asks, as she jumps up and heads into the bedroom. “What're you doing?” he calls, picking up another slice of toast. He finishes it in a couple of bites as she bumps around in there. “Darce?” he calls again.

“Hang on!” she says. “Just... one... minute... yes, there they are!”

She reappears at the door, smiling. “I've got something for you,” she says. She comes back over to the couch and holds out his rings. “I kept them safe.”

He picks them up carefully, running his thumb over the simple engravings. “Thank you,” he says softly. He still feels a little... wobbly, but it's a good sort of wobbly now. He takes a breath and looks up at her. “Do you want go on a run with me? I think I need to burn off some excess energy.”

“Is that a good idea, with your surgery?”

“It's healed up, it's fine.”

“Okay...” she agrees slowly. “But try not to take off like the freaking Road Runner like you usually do.”

“Meep meep,” he says.

\- 

He gives her a five minute head start, but he still overtakes her after a couple of minutes, and he's not even trying.

“Asshole!” she yells as he waves at her as he passes by. Well, she doesn't really yell, it's more of a strangled pant, but he gets the picture. He leads her a couple of blocks further before he slows, dropping back to let her catch up.

“Hate... you...” she pants, throwing her arm around his shoulders and half collapsing against him. “Drag me, I can't go on.”

He hooks his arm around her waist and pulls her in tight. “Do you wanna stop by Starbucks, see if they're still selling peppermint hot chocolate?”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

“You want to go into a crowded café? Without your hat and sunglasses?” She reaches up and fluffs his hair.

“Yeah, I'm, um...” He runs his fingers through his hair and smiles. “I'm thinking that maybe it's time to stop doing all that stuff. It's not helping much, is it? Is that okay with you, would you rather try to stay anonymous?”

She grins brilliantly. “I want to show you off to everyone, all the time, I've got nothing to hide.”

“Same,” he says, and they maybe spend a little bit of time kissing in the street.

The servers at Starbucks stare when he goes up to order. They don't come right out and say anything, but while he's waiting for two large mugs of peppermint hot chocolate, they congregate in a little circle behind the counter and talk among themselves.

He doesn't try to find the most inconspicuous seats in the café – the best seats are squashy armchairs by the window, and he doesn't argue with Darcy over them. He can feel people looking and talking, and a couple of people come up to them and ask for autographs or just a handshake, and it's kind of awful, but Darcy has both her feet resting on top of his under the table, and she pulls stupid faces at him every so often. When they're done, he takes the two mugs back up to the counter and gives them to the barista.

“Hey,” the guy says – he can't be much older than twenty, with a straggly goatee that he appears to be growing in the style of Tony.

Steve steels himself for something. “Yeah?”

“You're really awesome, I'm a big fan.” He leans his arms against the edge of the counter. “Your girlfriend seems pretty cool, too.”

Steve raises his eyebrows. “Well... thanks.”

“No problem, man, have a nice day.”

“You too,” he replies, turning back to Darcy, who's clearing their used napkins away into the trash.

“What did he want?” she asks, taking Steve's hand.

“He said I was awesome, and you were pretty cool.”

“Only 'pretty' cool?” she repeats, pouting as they leave the café.

“Well, I think you're _really_ cool,” he says, throwing his arm around her shoulders.

“As you should,” she says, wrapping her arm around his waist in return.

They make it maybe a dozen steps away from the Starbucks before he hears his name being called. Well, his 'other' name.

“Captain America, Miss Lewis! Would you like to comment on last night's story?” someone yells behind them, which draws an awful lot of attention from other pedestrians. Steve tenses up.

“It's okay,” Darcy murmurs, and looks over her shoulder. “No comment!” she yells back.

“Captain! What about the reports implicating the Avengers in dismantling terrorist activities in the Caribbean?”

He smiles to himself. _It worked._

“Cap! What are your plans for Valentine's Day?”

“Valentine's Day?” he murmurs, looking down at Darcy. He'd completely forgot about that.

She pulls her phone out of her pocket and checks the date. “Jesus, it's tomorrow,” she says.

“Wow,” he says. The reporter's still yelling questions, and he frowns a little. He can feel the weight of the rings in his pocket – just over two weeks ago he'd had zero thoughts of owning expensive engagement and wedding rings, zero thoughts of wearing such things, and he still _isn't_ wearing them.

“Darce?” he says slowly.

“Yeah?”

“I wanna wear my rings.”

“You mean you want everyone to...?”

He nods. “Yeah. What do you think? Have you got yours with you?”

She grins, unzipping her little bag and opening it wide enough for him to see her two rings sitting there next to her wallet. She bumps his hip with her own. “Let's do it.”

He grins back, unzipping the pocket of his hoodie that hold his rings, and takes a deep breath before slipping them on. Darcy does the same, and he kisses the top of her head.

“Captain!” the reporter yells again.

Steve shares a look with Darcy, eyebrow arched, then twists his upper body and lifts his left hand to wave. It takes a couple of seconds, but the man's eyes zero in on Steve's ring finger, and his camera flashes about ten times in a row.

“Now we're in for it,” Darcy says, grinning so wide it looks like her face might break from it.

“We sure are,” he says, and braces himself for the onslaught of questions with a smile.


End file.
